Puppy bit a bufo (Latin for frog and also local name for frogs imported from Hawaii) and adrenaline poisoned dog. Foaming at mouth (due to poison stinging tongue), running in circle, finally lying on ground gasping for breath—all this in two or three minutes after biting frog. Gardener said antidote is sugar, so 1-kilo sack (roughly 2 pounds) sugar poured down throat of seemingly dying animal. Sugar caused vomiting. This followed by a large dose of castor oil. In three hours dog was completely well and wagging tail again. Animals and persons eating bufos either die or recover quickly, due to short-lived effect of adrenaline. Box of frogs sent to Central from Hawaii, packed in excelsior, arrived safely here without food or drink. Sent to help control insects on this Central. Now bufos cover the island. Large, warty toads with pouches of poison back of the eyes. People have tried removing these pouches and eating the frogs, but death has resulted as there are other adrenaline glands. In fact bufos are used as a source of the medicine and are being raised in some places for that purpose. Bufos eat Mosquito eggs in water so there are few mosquitoes here. At dusk each day thousands of bufos come out and hop over lawns. They disappear with dawn and do not come out again until nightfall. They are harmless as long as skin is unbroken. Children love to chase them.
Elizabeth Vaughan
Elizabeth Head Vaughan (1905 - September 29, 1957) journalist and Sociologist. Interned in the Bacolod Internment Camp and Santo Tomas internment camp in Manila, 1942-45.
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