In 1726, a poor, illiterate 25-year-old servant named Mary Toft became pregnant, and she tricked doctors into thinking she could give birth to rabbits. News of her miraculous births spread throughout England. Eventually, she was exposed as a fraud.
Mary Toft was born Mary Denyer in 1703 in Godalming, Surrey, which is about 40 miles away from London. Godalming was one of the poorest areas in the whole country.
When she was 17, she married 18-year-old wool textile worker Joshua Toft. They had two children together. Every morning, Mary had to wake up early and walk two hours to work in a field.
On September 27, 1726, she reportedly gave birth to several lumps of flesh that did not appear to be from a human. Mary had a miscarriage just a month before, so her latest “birth” could have been a malformed placenta.
The local doctor, John Howard, helped her deliver what he described as three legs of a tabby cat, one leg of a rabbit, the guts of a cat, and three pieces of a backbone of an eel within the cat’s guts. In another instance, Mary allegedly gave birth to nine dead baby rabbits.
Dr. Howard wrote to the top doctors and scientists in England about the births, as well as the secretary of King George I. The king sent two men to investigate the situation: his Swiss surgeon/anatomist, Nathaniel St. André, and the Prince of Wales’s secretary, Samuel Molyneux.
By then, Mary had already moved to the larger town of Guildford. Each time she delivered a rabbit, Dr. Howard would immediately preserve it in a jar.
The king’s two men arrived on November 15, just when Mary had gone into labor with her 15th rabbit. Nathaniel and Samuel observed her giving birth to a few rabbits.
Then, they examined the animals. Some of the bunnies appeared to be fetuses, while others were a few months old, and one contained remnants of grass and hay in its stomach. Nathaniel took one of the rabbits back to the king.
He was convinced that Mary’s case was an example of “maternal impression,” a theory that attempted to explain birth defects and disorders. Mary claimed that she had been startled by a rabbit while working in the field, pointing to the theory.
On November 29, Mary was taken to a bathhouse in London for further observation. Of course, all the doctors who observed her were men.
She did not give birth to any more rabbits and seemed to have fallen ill. It was then that a servant was caught trying to sneak a rabbit into Mary’s room. He stated that Mary’s sister-in-law, Margaret Toft, had asked him to find a small rabbit.
Mary refused to confess until a doctor threatened to perform surgery on her to see if she had abnormal reproductive organs. She finally admitted that the whole situation had been a sham on December 7.
The ruse had involved an accomplice inserting dead animal parts into Mary. Her rabbits were usually delivered with their sharp nails still intact, and likely stayed in her body for several weeks before she delivered them.
Mary blamed other people for forcing her to take part in the charade, such as her husband and mother-in-law.
On December 9, she was arrested and remained in Bridewell prison for four months. Crowds of people came to gawk at her. Eventually, she was released. She died in 1763 at the age of 60.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
