Some time in the spring of 1726, Mary Toft, the young wife of a journeyman clothier, suffered a miscarriage. The event followed three successful births, themselves a wonder in an age where pregnancy and childbirth endangered the lives of mother and fetus alike. Mary reported expelling materials from her body over the course of several days, a sad but not unusual reminder of the loss of her child.
Title page to the 1726 account of Mary's births
As members of the lower class from Godalming, Surrey, the Tofts lived a
hand-to-mouth existence during the long 18th century, often
supplementing their diet with the countryside’s abundant rabbit
population. As Mary was out in the fields weeding, she experienced the
first pangs of her uterine contractions leading to the miscarriage – as
she would later report – after watching a rabbit and “longing” for it.
Childbirth during the 18th century was laden with superstitions about unhealthy prenatal stimuli that could affect a fetus. A certain longing for foods, for instance, an attachment to a certain pet, or any obsessive behavior during pregnancy, it was believed, might impact the child’s looks and temperament. This commonplace superstition would aid the conspirators in the events that followed.
Childbirth during the 18th century was laden with superstitions about unhealthy prenatal stimuli that could affect a fetus. A certain longing for foods, for instance, an attachment to a certain pet, or any obsessive behavior during pregnancy, it was believed, might impact the child’s looks and temperament. This commonplace superstition would aid the conspirators in the events that followed.
Much of the evidence that survives from this case is from eyewitness testimony, considered reliable proof for the age. In this instance, the evidence of Mary’s monstrous births also serve as witness to the crime with the publication of A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets Perform’d by Mr. John Howard, Surgeon at Guilford, “Published by Mr. St. André.” As the conclusion of the pamphlet includes elaborate witness testimonies, Mary’s later admission that the events following her miscarriage, though conceived by her, clearly involved a large-scale conspiracy.
As Toft’s surgeon and midwife, John Howard entered the tale early, and the tone in his account is certainly not tongue-in-cheek; in it, Howard demonstrates forensic science of the age, though he distorts it to fit his scheme. The Short Narrative consists of a detailed, scientific examination of Mary Toft and her births, an account of her life to that point, and the testimony of witnesses involved with Mary.
18th-century engraving of Mary Toft's rabbit births
After receiving strange animal parts purported to have been expelled from Mary’s uterus after her miscarriage, Howard helped to spread the story. When a 1726 newspaper reported that the Surrey woman was giving birth to rabbits, King George himself took interest, requesting that his own household doctor, Nathaniel St. André, investigate. George sent another surgeon, Cyriacus Ahlers, to further examine the report.
The more sordid details of the observations the three doctors made are shocking. Howard writes, “I deliver’d [Mary] of the entire Trunk, strip’d of its Skin, of a Rabbet of about four Months growth, in which the hearth and Lungs were contained with the Diaphragm entire. I instantly cut off a piece of them, and tried them in Water; they seemed but just specially lighter than it…” Here, Howard is attempting to demonstrate that the rabbits issuing from Mary’s body had breathed air into the lungs, hence the water test. He testifies that she gives birth to rabbit, cat, and eel parts and bodies, though the majority of parts were those of rabbits.
In addition to examining the patient, Howard claims to have carefully examined the rabbits, down to their waste: “In the Rectum of this Animal, which remain’d affix’d to the Body, we found five or six Pellets, must of the same Colour and Consistence as the common Dung of a Rabbet, little Bodies, like dried Fragments, being matted together with a mucous Matter.”
The Surrey doctor also notes, “One remarkable Circumstance is, that most of these Animals were Females, as far as I could judge.” After witnessing and displaying several of these births for the king’s visiting physicians, Howard reaches his scientific conclusion: “This, I think, proves in the strongest Terms possible that these Animals were of a particular kind, and not bred in any natural Way… .” These animals, he claims, are “Praeternatural Rabbets.”
18th-century poem and engraving satirizing Toft
The scheme further unraveled in late-1726 when a witness revealed he had observed Mary’s husband Joshua purchasing rabbits. Mary was taken to court and threatened with an invasive operation to investigate her uterus. Under this threat, Mary confessed to inserting animal parts into her vagina. She admitted that she believed the notoriety from the monstrous births would gain her fame and wealth; instead, she was charged with being a “vile cheat and an imposter,” and remanded to Tothill Fields Birdwell Prison.
Tothill Fields Birdwell prison (top)
Portrait of Mary Toft in prison (bottom)
Howard said of Mary that she was "of a very stupid
and sullen Temper: She can neither write nor read..."
18th-century false account of Mary's suicide
The aftermath of the Mary Toft case during the 18th century was widespread. Satirists mocked the conspirators, questioning the ability of physicians provide reliable forensic testimony. And while Mary was considered a simpleton, a pawn in a game created by men, her sexuality was the subject of speculation and further mockery in poems and satirical cartoons of the era.