Hello and thank you for downloading Witness with me Lucy Burns from the BBC World Service

and today we go back to September 1726 and the true story behind a medical curiosity which

gripped George in England. It was the story of a young

woman called Mary Toft who claimed she was giving birth to rabbits. The weekly

journal was first with the story.

From Guilford comes a strange but well attested piece of news.

That a poor woman who lives at Godalming near that town

was about a month past delivered by Mr John Howard an eminent surgeon and man

midwife living at Guilford of a creature resembling a rabbit. That poor woman was

Mary Toft wife of clothmaker Joshua.

John Howard, the man midwife, described the case in a letter.

Sir, since I wrote to you I have delivered the poor woman of three more rabbits, all three half grown.

I do not know how many rabbits may be behind.

John Howard was writing to Nathaniel St Andre, a Swiss physician and surgeon to the Royal household of King George I.

Excited by the novelty, he came to Guildford to examine Mary Toft and wrote a pamphlet about her story.

On the 23rd of April last, as she was weeding in a field, she saw a rabbit spring up near her, after which she ran.

This set her a longing for rabbits, being as she thought five weeks gone with child.

From that time for above three months she had a constant and strong desire to eat rabbits,

but being very poor and indigent could not procure any.

Karen Harvey is professor of cultural history at the University of Sheffield and the

author of a forthcoming book about Mary Toft.

I think the case for us sounds crazy, but at this time people's understanding of conception

...