In a footnote Freud added to the second case study published in Studies on Hysteria (1896), the psychoanalyst writes that ‘a special kind of symbolism must, no doubt, have lain behind the toad,’ and admits that he ‘unfortunately neglected to enquire into it’. This article explores the symbol of the toad in the case of Frau Emmy von N. and argues that Freud's patient was a victim of a sexual assault. It asks why the material was left unexplored and offers a wider exploration of the relation between hysteria and sexual trauma in Freud's writings, linking this psychopathology to the experience of femininity. The work ends by making a case for the continued importance of re-description in our approach to early psychoanalytic literature.