Mary Toft

While Easter is around the corner, I found a curious story about rabbits. In 1726 lived a woman named Mary Toft who gave birth to litters of rabbits. This was witnessed by a multitude of people in authority and Mary was often shown in labour and bringing rabbits into the world. This sounds completely rubbish, although such an event happened and it was taken seriously. Let us go into it more.

The whole country was talking about her. Scientists, doctors and the king were all amazed! Not only did Mary deliver baby rabbits once or twice but 17 times! The woman was born Mary Denyer in Godalming, Surrey in 1703. When she was 17 years old, she married 18 year old Joshua Toft, who worked in textiles. While heavily pregnant Mary had to work in the fields and this was the norm for peasant women. It was here that her crazy nightmares began. She'd suffered a miscarriage, and a doctor arrived to help her. He described this as a "non human birth", and then made a few whopping descriptions about the foetus looking like an animal. This doctor was obstetrician John Howard and he would play a big part in Mary's story. 

He contacted many officials as Mary kept "giving birth to dead rabbits". This followed up with investigations by scientists and doctors, including a Swiss surgeon Nathaniel St. André who worked for the royals, and Samuel Molyneux, a secretary for the Prince of Wales. Mary had even left her home village to be close to the doctor in Guildford where she was often giving birth to rabbits. Its now believed that she was miscarrying and those babies were kept in pickled jars by the Doctor Howard for studying. One of those jars of Mary's dead babies was taken by an official and shown to George I the king of Great Britain and Ireland. 

But it's here that Mary became frightened, when she was sent to London and exposed to a multitude of officials and noblemen who wanted to see her giving birth to rabbits. There was suggestion that she should be cut open so they can find out about her internal organs. To avoid further misery, Mary confessed that it was a hoax, and the rabbits were dead animals that she carried with her. It seemed someone had been using her, and the finger pointed at her husband and other people. She was then arrested and put in prison for a while, as she became subject of public national ridicule. Even the doctors and many other top people involved were a laughing stock to believe this. After Mary was released from prison, she went on to live her life freely. Then after she died in 1763, the church wrote of her as "Impostress Rabbit". 

Source: Woman who gave birth to rabbits article at Atlas Obscura

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