There are many curious tales from the past.
One that recently came to my attention was that of a Mary Toft, who in 1726 Georgian England, gave birth to a succession of rabbits.
It was, at the time, a matter of great public interest making the pages of the equivalent for the period of a weekly tabloid newspaper and even involved the monarch, George 1st, whose personal physician examined and issued a medical pamphlet authenticating the phenomena.
At that time there was a very different perception of the pregnancy, gestation and birth cycle and many in an authoritative position believed that a woman could affect her unborn child with her very thoughts and experiences.
Mary Toft, from Godalming in Surrey was from poor stock and married to a cloth maker.
In the early stages of a pregnancy she claimed to have seen rabbits in the wild and for some 3 months thereafter had a strong compulsion to eat them but due to her impoverished state could not afford to.
Unfortunately the pregnancy miscarried and her husband had to take away the remains of the premature foetus.
Shortly after Mary attested to having felt a stirring in her womb and an Obstetrician from London confirmed that, indeed, he himself had seen a strange stirring from her belly as though something was cavorting about in there. The King's doctor is recorded as having been present to remove the third rabbit.
The story fascinated the Georgian population especially as it involved intimate details of medical probing of a woman, scandal and not a little bit of humour. The satirist, Hogarth produced a cartoon depicting such an investigation amongst a scene full of rabbits.
Mary and her entourage moved to London for close scrutiny of the strange situation.
In spite of the royal endorsement of Mary's condition there were many sceptics amongst the medical fraternity. One expert drafted in remarked that Mary always kept her knees and thighs together as though in fear of another rabbit emerging.
Suspicions arose in the urban surroundings of the Capital when Mary asked a reporter to get her a rabbit, the smallest he could find.
An autopsy of one of the rabbits revealed some startling facts, mainly that it been fed pellets containing straw and with signs of knife cuts in the flesh.
An elaborate hoax was now suspected and this led to a rapid retraction of the opinion of the King's Doctor.
Mary was urged to confess but three very different accounts in her statements only served to highlight a disturbed mental state. In her own words she described the original miscarriage and her feelings of guilt, inadequacy and desperation.
Others were implicated in the scam including locals from Godalming and her mother in law.
The early 18th Century was an era of civil unrest and protest .
Many political activists were keen to mount campaigns against the ruling class and powerful landowners and Mary seems to have been unwittingly or otherwise drawn into the conspiracy as an apparent victim of poverty and food shortages.
It may not be possible to ever get to the true protagonists in the whole affair due to the murky circumstances and the passage of time.
Mary admitted to inserting disected rabbit parts into her body and keeping them there for some time before the fake births obviously at some personal risk and discomfort,
Some 15 rabbits were issued forth in this way.
Criminal proceedings resulted in imprisonment for Mary although there was no actual Statute in law by which to make a conviction hold and she was released from the notorious Bridewell Prison after just a few months.
She returned to Godalming and her death was recorded in 1763 under the description of the rabbit impostress.
A strange and fascinating tale indeed.
(Source. BBC World Service)
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