The story of Mary Toft, the English girl who gave birth to nine rabbits It is a demonstration that in all times there have been people who have not cared expose yourself in order to get fame. We are often surprised to see on television, participating in reality programs, countless people who do not mind making their privacy public or being laughed at if that means they can become famous. It seems to us that this is something new, that it has been invented recently with the arrival of the Internet and this type of broadcast, but this is not the case, in the 18th century, in England, we have a pioneer in these matters.
Mary Toft, the English girl who gave birth to nine rabbits
The gullible that do not analyze the information tend to be fertile ground for those who try to become famous, if we also find ourselves in the century XVIIIin which many things were believed to be possible due to ignorance, it is not strange that a case like that of Mary Toft occurred.
Mary Toft was born in 1701 in Godalming , Surrey. She married at 19 and had 3 children. In 1726being in the field working together with another woman, suffered an abortion. She went to get help since Mary was not feeling well. When she returned with the relief, she Mary showed them what had come out of his bowels: they looked like pieces of a trap. Alarmed, they took her to her house and called the local doctor, the Dr. John Howard. During the following days Mrs. Toft gave birth to babies again, usually chopped. Total gave birth to nine rabbits. The doctor, stunned, shared the strange news with some colleagues in London, and they They made it reach the newspapers of the time. The explanation they gave is that the woman during pregnancy and before suffering the abortion had been obsessed with rabbits and even before she miscarried she had been chasing one around the countryside.
The case became so famous that King George I himself sent his doctor header to inform him. He Dr. Nathaniel Saint André He believed the case completely and let the monarch know. This one believing that Such a phenomenon deserved to be investigated. thoroughly he made the woman travel to London so that more doctors could visit her. The commotion in the capital was so great that people crowded at the door of the house where she was staying in order to see her for a moment.
A London doctor who examined her, Dr. Ahler, you questioned the whole story since he believed it was impossible for a human being to give birth to a rabbit. Despite the logic, many colleagues opposed him. While, a nobleman of Godalming, Thomas Onslow, 2nd Baron Onslow, investigated the matter and discovered that Mary’s husband had been buying a lot of rabbits during those days. Since there were already several people who saw a fraud in the matter, Sir Richard Manningham threatened her with performing a painful operation to see what was happening inside. Mary, scared, confessed that after the abortion, she herself introduced the pieces of rabbit into her uterus who then pretended to give birth. The doctors who endorsed the phenomenon saw their careers sink. When questioned about the reasons for the fraud, she said that He wanted to get fame and a pension from the king.
As you can see, in all times there have been people capable of anything for notoriety and money. If you were interested in this article, you may want to read Borley Parsonage, the most haunted house in England.