October 27, 2025 • 39 mins
The court anatomist returned the King George I with astonishing news: a woman named Mary Toft has been giving birth.... to rabbits.
Sources:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/05/an-extraordinary-delivery-of-rabbits/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mary-toft-gave-birth-to-rabbits
https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/aug2009.html
https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article/80/1/33/665070?login=false
https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/238/1/43/4822513?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.godalmingmuseum.co.uk/articles/mary-tofts
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Folks,
it's a hug.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
No, I haven't seen me when us see.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we
wish were true.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
And truths that sound like lies.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm the ghost of Danish Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Show, Lizzie. Before we start on this episode, I want
to ask what your tolerance is for body horror? But
do get grossed out easily? Do have Do you watch House?
Did you watch The Pit?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I liked the Pit quite a bit. Okay, rhyme intentional.
I can close my eyes during body horror stuff. I
guess since this is audio medium, I can clue my ears.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, I'm not going to show you any photos, okay,
because this story takes place in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Okay, Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of gore or
body horror, but I understand that bodies decay and we
have blood inside of us.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Bodies are a horror, yes, and one just sort of overall.
Note before we start this episode, if you're someone who's
very sensitive to issues of fertility or miscarriage. This might
not be the episode for you because it involves pregnancy
and pregnancy loss and sort of pregnancy trauma. Okay, we're
going to start in a town called Godalming, which is
(01:40):
a very small market town fifty miles southwest of London.
We're in the seventeen hundreds, so this town is a
very very poor town and it's basically just like a
stagecoach stop and route to London. So the people who
are living there are living there very boring lives, but
they're seeing people in like glamorous London stage coaches come by. Okay,
(02:06):
so it's a it's not a great place to live
from what it sounds like. Our heroin for this episode
is a woman named Mary Toft. She lives with her
husband and their three young children. She got married when
she was seventeen to Joshua Toft, who was eighteen. He's
a clothier, which means he makes cloth, but work is
very hard to come by. She works in a hop field.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Okay. Hops is like a type of grain that you
make beer out of.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, okay, but she's like harvesting that for that, you know,
works in a field with a lot of other women
at this point in the story when we're starting, she's
twenty four years old. She has two living children and
one that has died, although details on which children are
living at what point in the story is a little tricky. Okay,
So by this point we believe she's had three pregnancies
(02:56):
and she's pregnant with her fourth child. Okay, and still
walk in two hours a day to get to the
hop field, working grueling hours and then walking two hours back.
Rough This is not a good life.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It doesn't sound like a fun life.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
No, she's she's going through it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So imagine like being pregnant, having two children at home
at least two, possibly three, a husband who is likely
out of work, and just like living this miserable existence
watching people in their fancy London carriages. In August of
seventeen twenty six, Mary has a miscarriage. Unfortunately, very sad,
(03:34):
very sad, a thing that happens to this day that
people don't talk about. So what's strange is that she
has this miscarriage in August, and in September, a month later,
she starts having the symptoms of labor. Oh, which is
not a thing that should be happening. Now, she's attended
by her mother in law, Ann Toft, and a neighbor.
(03:55):
Antoft is not like registered as a midwife in like
the parish registries, but she has, you know, has had
many kids I think sort of helps people out. Is
sort of a maternal figure. So it's not like Mary's
being treated by doctors yet, but she's being treated by
like the local women who can help her out. But
they do not know what is happening. Yeah, and so
they call what is known as a male midwife from
(04:17):
the nearby town of gil Guildford, which is like the
nearest not big town, but bigger town. And this doctor
or male midwife comes named John Howard, and he comes
to examine Mary Toft, and he sees that she has
given birth not to a human baby, but to strange
animal parts. Oh oh dear, which is not a thing
(04:40):
that happens. Nope, usually nope. And so John Howard reports.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
That usually not happens I've ever ever, not at all,
not at all. I would say like zero percent of
the lies.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, But John Howard is astonished and is taking note
of this thing that is happening, and over the next
few weeks he records that Mary Toft gives let's say
birth for lack of a better word, to a pig's bladder,
a cat's paw, the backbone of an eel, and then
multiple dead baby rabbits. And it's the rabbits that are
(05:15):
the most notable.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Listener, you can't see me, but I'm making a face
like that's gross.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's gross. I wanted to warn you before this episode.
It's it's pretty gross.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
That's pretty gross. And I'm not grossed out by miscarriage
or birth. I'm grossed out by dead baby rabbits coming
out of a human lady's.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Vagina, dead baby coming out of human ladies vagina.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That's gross. I'm gonna I think I'm okay to say that.
I don't think that makes me a bad feminist. I
think that's a little gross.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's gross. It's not a thing that should biologically happen.
People are confused, but they have an explanation, and aren't
they She's a witch.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Mary says that back in the spring when she was pregnant,
she was out weeding in the field and saw a
rabbit and she was hungry and craving rabbit meat, which
would have been really expensive and she wouldn't have been
able to afford it, And she chased the rabbit but
couldn't catch it, and then kept having super strong pregnancy
craving for rabbit meat, like to make into a stew
or pie, which is kind of like the beginning of
(06:15):
Rapunzel when the mom really wants that one like the
cabbage or whatever. Yeah, from the witch's garden, but anyway,
she says. A later doctor wrote in an interview that
this set her a longing for rabbit. Being then as
she thought five weeks gone with child, the woman charged
with longing for the rabbit that she couldn't catch, but
(06:38):
she denied it. She then dreamt of rabbits and had
a constant and strong desire to eat rabbit, but being
very poor and indigent, could not procure any. So that
was the idea of what caused this.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So like the power of her mind turned her like
half miscarried baby into like.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Rabbit, multiple baby rabbits. Maternal impression is what the name
of this was, and it was a fairly common belief
at the time. People thought that pregnant women could influence
their unborn babies with their thoughts and their experiences. Have
you heard of like Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man. Yes,
this is later, but his explanation for why.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
He was like his mom looked at an elephant.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
His mom was startled by an elephant, which again is
like a we think is like a silly story. And
I don't even know if he actually believed it, but
that was sort of the circus explanation. And in the
eighteenth century work on Midwiffery by this doctor John Mawbrey,
he advised women to avoid quote playing with dogs, squirrels, apes,
(07:44):
and etc. As this could lead to the birth of
vile creatures.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well, you know, you gotta be careful.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
What I kind of find interesting is this is the
seventeen hundred, so the scientific Enlightenment is happening. But I
think it's kind of important to remember that despite the
fact the way that we're sort of taught history in
schools where it's like, ah, this year the Scientific Enlightenment, Ah,
this year the the you know, uh Renaissance, Like these
things don't happen all at once. People don't just like
(08:12):
make a declaration and then everyone's mind is changed.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, and like people still are like feeding babies honey
and giving them botulism. Like, so like I would not
be surprised if like the next TikTok trend was like
my baby has like really wide set eyes because I
watched you know, too many Nature documentary.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah I was pregnant, but yeah, it's this. Also, I
think it also reinforces this idea that like the pregnant
woman is like has magical like mysterious powers. Yes, which
is I really hated when I was pregnant that sort
of like you got it, mama, go girl, like you're
a goddess, because I think it's condescending. Yes, I think
(08:55):
it's very like women are over here and can be mysterious.
Men will be in charge of politics and economics and
literature and like actual tangible but you're a goddess like you.
So that's why I sort of have like my it
makes my teeth hirt a.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Little, yeah, and like fanuous like palm fronds and like
feed you grapes and like don't take your mind seriously
but like focus on your belly.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah you go, girl, Mama, you're so mysterious. You're a
moon goddess. While over here, like men are doing like
art and commerce and politics. Sure, but all that's to say,
is the idea that she is having these dead rabbit
babies is not, like, on its face absurd. Okay, there
is a culturally understood explanation, but it's still amazing because
(09:43):
this is not something that happens every day. And over
the next few weeks, Howard the male midwife keeps delivering
these dead rabbits, and he writes to doctors and scientists
in London, and he's kept the eleven rabbits that he's
delivered pickled in jars on a shelf. Is she okay
in what way?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Like if there's dead rabbits? I mean, is she like dying?
She's like hamborhage, like is she like up at about?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
No? She seems fine And the leader a doctor will
be like, she's in pretty good humor. Okay, but yeah,
so the word gets out.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
October tenth, seventeen twenty six, there's the first newspaper notice.
Do you want to read this newspaper notice?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
From Guildford comes a strange but well attested piece of
news that a poored woman who lives at Gondolman near
that town, who has a husband and two children now
living with her, was about a month past delivered by
mister John Howard, an eminent surgeon and man midwife living
at Guildford, of a creature resembling a rabbit.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
The news is out. It's a pretty like level headed
news article, I would say, for a pretty unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Thing, free amble with like the punchline right at the end.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah right, oh yeah, doctor place creature resembling a rabbit born.
So King George the First decides that he's going to
send his court to anatomist, Nathaniel Saint Andre, to go investigate,
and he also sends along the Prince of Wales's secretary,
this guy Samuel Malino, who is a secretary but also
(11:18):
a scientist who measures these things called stellar parallaxes, which
are important and I do not understand them, but like,
good on him. That's like an important scientific discovery unrelated
to this.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So science is happening in this kingdom in some way.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, this guy Samuel Malino is doing a great job
somewhere else in unrelated matters.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Unrelated to whether or not women can give birth to
dead rabbits.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, but the important figure here, the real star of
the show is Nathaniel Saint Andre. Okay, and what you
need to know about him is even at the time,
he was a pretty controversial figure because my favorite sort
of description of him came from an article in the
(12:03):
Paris Review that described him as quote an opportunistic dilettante
with a taste for ornately embroidered shirts, which is just
like a great way to put someone down. He was
born in Switzerland, traveled Europe as a servant, and he
worked as a language teacher, a dancer, and a fencer,
like a fencing teacher, and he's sort of like a
(12:25):
charmer seducer type.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I am getting like a real Derek Blasberg vibe.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So when I say that this guy,
you know, traveled as a servant, language teacher, dancing tutor,
fencing tutor, you might not be thinking a surgeon or
court anatomist.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
No, I'm more thinking he is of the like the
softer arts, Like he is of the he is of
the social graces and the the finer things.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, And basically what happened is he's injured by a
fencing student, He's treated by a surgeon, and realized that
that guy was making a lot of money, so he
decided to pivot because he didn't think it seemed too hard,
and at the time it wasn't like there were med
school boards to deal with. Okay, So he just does
a perfunctory internship apprenticeship in London, sets up a practice,
(13:24):
and just charms his way all the way to the
King Great. And I think the context is important that
the king at the time is George the first. Who's
the first Hanover King. I'm going to put my noble
blood hat on just for a second. But did you
see the favorite Yes, so Queen Anne, the one that
Olivia Coleman is great Protestant. Okay, dies with no children, Yes,
(13:47):
very important in England that she had a lot of miscarriages.
She had a lot of miscarriages and in that movie
a lot of rabbits. But that is not historically actor.
That was just the director having some fun. Okay, she's
brought dies with no babies. They very important in England
at the time, and I'm brushing over a lot of
important stuff. They're the king and Queen can only be Protestant,
(14:09):
no more Catholics. So her nearest Protestant relative is a
German cousin. Who's the handovers. So that's George the first
comes over to England. He was not born in England.
He does not speak English very well at all. So
he's sort of this foreign German king that's coming over
to be King of England kind of on a technicality, okay.
(14:32):
And so this Saint Andre guy kind of represents everything
that English people hate about George the first because he's foreign.
He's like German speaking, and it's like charisma and fluff
over substance and science.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So it's like people are not thrilled with the king
right now, gotcha? And people are not thrilled that they
think he's kind of stupid and easily seduced by these
like charmers. Not popular, no, But Saint Andre arrives to Guildford,
sees Mary while she's in labor with her allegedly fifteenth rabbit.
He by this is from his account. He watches as
(15:10):
her stomach is pulsing and quivering like there is like
a living animal inside her, and then he sees the
sorry like dead animal pieces that are expelled and the
animal pieces are in pieces. Because his theory is that
it's the forces of the uterus.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's it's not good, it's no, that's sad, and I
want to know what's actually happening to this poor woman.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, and you asked how she's doing. He describes her
as having a sullen temper, but says that except for
when she was in labor pains, she quote laughed very
heartily with us, So okay, she's doing okay, okay. Saint
Andre takes some of the pickled rabbits back to the King,
(15:55):
and the King is this is amazing. He arranges for
Mary to be brought to London and give a pension
for her trouble, which I guess is just the thing
that happens if a medical anomally is happening to you.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, you know what I was thinking about recently is
how you you mentioned like the elephant man. We think
about how like oh, there used to be like freak shows. Yeah,
and like people pay to see the freak and like,
isn't it good that we've grown past that as a society,
And like, no, we haven't. We just have TLC.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
We have TLC and we have people doing it to
themselves on TikTok truly.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And like, yes, of course Mary Toff would have a
pension now it would be called like a sponsorship on Instagram,
she would be.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Like story time, here's how we keep birth rabbits. Yeah,
but the context I think also is like medical mysteries
and marvels were like a common attraction.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
People are bored human interest, Like, yes, I would be interested,
Like if this were happening, I would be like, what's
up with this, lady?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I mean A tidbit that I kind of think is
interesting is in seventeen seventy seven, the year that Paris
gets its very first newspaper, London already has three hundred
daily newspapers.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I was about to say that seems really late for
Paris to get his first news.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
They're too busy smoking, reading a book. Paris get together poetry.
But London is very much like a city of gossip
and tabloid journalism. People are going to coffee houses to
read the news, and this sort of thing is getting
attention and apparently a pension from the king. People even
at the time, and this, I feel like is a
theme for hoax or It's like rather than people just
(17:29):
being done back then, people even at the time are skeptical.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Mary is examined by a doctor named Richard Manningham, who
sees her having something like a seizure or fit. He
sees belly movement happening, something that lasts a little while
he does not quite know what it is. But people
also are skeptical because they examine the rabbits that Mary
delivers and sees that they have corn and hay and
(17:54):
grass in their stomach, So it's like these rabbits aren't
originating from inside of her. And also Saint Andre tests
the rabbit's lungs and determined that it had breathed air
like it had already. I don't know what happens to
lung tissue when it breathes air, but like I think
I think tests an floats which indicates something. So there's like,
(18:14):
how were these rabbits aren't being born inside her? Yeah,
they take Mary to a bathhouse in London. I don't
know why, not a hospital, but they take her to
a place called mister Lacy's Bagnio in lester Fields, which
is like.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It is a just try to get her to chill out, maybe,
but I also.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Think it's like a place that like she could be
examined within sort of not public, but she's being examined
by as many as ten doctors at a time. Which feels,
when you think about it, very invasive and is probably
very unpleasant for her. Okay, she doesn't give birth to
any more rabbits. Okay, but based on this sort of
(18:54):
fit and seizure that that doctor has, I don't I
don't know. I'm not going to diagnose some and posthumously,
but it seems like she's probably suffering from a bad infection.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
At the beginning of December, Saint Andre publishes his accounts
of these events and it becomes a London obsession. He
writes this public publication called a Short Narrative of an
Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits. But three days later it all
falls apart, okay, because a porter at the bathhouse reports
(19:27):
that either Mary or depending on the accounts, married sister
in law Margaret Toft, attempt to attempted to bribe him
into smuggling pieces of rabbit into the bath house, manning him.
The doctor basically confronts Mary and says if she doesn't
tell the truth, they'll need to do exploratory surgery on her,
(19:49):
which is a pretty bad threat.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Also, like without her consent, I mean, can't she just
be like no, you cannot do explore her surgery on me, like, I.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Think, I think he's bluffing. Yeah, I deeply hope he's bluffing.
The bluff works. She immediately breaks down and confesses that
it was a hoax the way she confesses. December seventh, again,
just a few days after Saint Andre published his big
account of this amazing thing happening, she publishes her own
(20:19):
apology and confession. She blames her husband, her mother in law,
and strangely, the wife of a local organ grinder for
giving her this idea and sort of pushing her into it.
To me, it seems like an insane hoax, but I
guess it was working, and it was like going to
give her a pension from the king, and it was
giving her a lot of attention. But the way she
(20:40):
frames it is she was scared and impressionable and trying
to make some extra money for her family. And the
idea was that because she had had these pregnancies in
this miscarriage, her cervix was open, yeah, and they were
putting dead animal pieces inside of her manually to be delivered.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Oh boy.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
One like modern day researcher points out that it's amazing
that she didn't die of a bacterial infection.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And also something horrific that I just want to acknowledge
is that Saint Andre and his account will talk about
how these animal pieces, some of them had their nails
still intact. Yeah, so this is like an incredible it's
a it's a hoax.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
And I'm putting you're even supposed to leave a tampon
in for very long. You're supposed to be really careful
with what you put up there.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, So this is like this woman is sort of
being tortured by this scam that her husband, mother in law,
sister in law, and I guess like a local organ
grinder is putting her up to. It is. Yeah, it's gross,
and but it worked in terms of the hoax temporarily.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I wonder if she just had like crazy post miscarriage
depression and was just like needed like attention and like
a break from the fields and.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Like, yeah, you know, also, her life is miserable. Yeah,
her life is boring, sad and miserable. If her one
of her children hadn't died by this point, one of
her children would die. She had a miscarriage. She walks
two hours back and forth her husband's unemployed manual labor
every day, making so little money they can't afford rabbit meat.
(22:20):
I mean, she lives a boring, miserable life. Someone probably
came to her with this idea and it's like, okay,
maybe it's and she was willing to endure this for
money and like a little bit of attention and excitement. Yeah,
I mean it's awful. It also makes me think of
have you seen the movie Catch Me If you Can?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Many times?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Delightful film, one of my favorites. I think it was
on my New York Times when You're like your top dad.
I love it. There's that scene that Tom Hanks is like,
I gotta know, how did you pass the bar? And
he's like, I studied, I passed the bar. That kind
of it's like, how is she delivering rabbit parties? The
rabbit part? Yeah, she is physically delivering rabbit parts. It's
(23:01):
not a sleight of hand routine, oh sure, yea. Or
it's like David it's a sleight of vagina vagina routine.
Or it's like David Blaine, like when he holds his
breath for like a long time, Like sometimes they are
not magic tricks. Sometimes he just like teaches himself sure, so, yeah,
this becomes a It was already a major story because
it was like this body horror sensation, but it's like
(23:24):
a perfect storm to become a massive story. The satirists
have a field day because they get to they get
to do their favorite thing. They get to make fun
of foreigners, the elite, and women all at once.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I mean, and not to be like as they should
stick it to her, but like you set yourself up
for that, Mary, like you're just shoving dead animal parts
up your lady bits. Like, yeah, people are gonna make
some jokes. The satirists have a field day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
They mostly love making fun of Saint Andre because he's
the silly foreigner. Great, that's their sort of famous target.
Mary is kind of framed as like a stupid victim,
even though she was the one who sort of did
the hoax on the doctor. She's sort of framed as
like a country bumpkin, and it's the doctors who are
stupid idiots. The most famous takedown is from an artist,
(24:20):
William Hogarth, who spoofs it as like the Adoration of
the Magi with like Tafta's Virgin Mary and the like
wise men are Saint Andre and his colleagues like get
it because they're they're not wise indeed, And the illustration
is titled caniculari, which is a double pun because the
(24:40):
Latin for rabbit is caniculous and vulva is kunitz you
might imagine, So it's very clever. And also it's like
because those are the roots, there's a similar word cony,
which is a ubiquitous sort of eighteenth century London slang
for both rabbit and female genitalia. So like the jokes
(25:01):
right themselves, the the the.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Kimmel monologue of this era would have just been hit
after hit after hit after hit.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's like a sex scandal. It's like a comedy sex scandal.
Like the absurdity and silliness of it is also why
it just keeps getting made fun of again, because Saint
Andre was already this figure that people hated and like
hated that he charmed his way all the way to
the king. But now there's like a vagina involved, was there?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Did he like lose his positions?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We will get get okay, But the satirists are also
they are making fun of Mary, but they're not framing
her as we said, as like conniving or conniving a
someone writes this like spooful, like you can't take her
down any farther, she's already pouring poor person who lives
(25:56):
in a nothing village and has a miserable life. Someone writes,
like a spoof confession by her, Like I don't even
know what the equivalent is, Like a spoof first person
confession called much ado about nothing that paints her as
like grasping and stupid and sexually promiscuous.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
The classics, the classics.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Again, like like I said, like you get to make
fun of stupid, slutty women and foreigners, everyone's favorite thing.
Mary is actually arrested as a quote notorious and vile
cheat for you know, fraud, and she sent to Bridewell Prison,
where people would pay almost to see her as a
zoo animal, like she would have to be like paraded
out to Like it's public humiliation by design, yeah, because
(26:38):
that's what they were doing at the time. There's entertainment.
It's like very much like Live by the Sword, Die
by the sword unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean, you know, here's that attention you ordered.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
She is eventually released after a few weeks no charges,
probably because pushing it further just would have embarrassed everyone
who felt for it. Yeah, because again like the king
and like the King's royal anantimus like had fallen from this,
so they just sort of like go back to your
no nowhere town.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and like get some clean underwear and like let
your servix close up and stop shoving things up yourself.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah. Please. Saint Andre, who you asked about, is publicly humiliated.
His royal duties stop, his salary is removed. He is
He tries to get another audience with the King, can't.
The King is like, I I'm not with this man anymore.
He does still get to keep the title of court Anatomist,
(27:32):
but I wonder if it is something almost like because
he's not getting a salary anymore, it's like you can
use it like New York Times bestseller, like once it
happens to one, so get the title forever. But he's
not getting a salary. King doesn't want to see him anymore.
But you want to hear the craziest part of the
story really unrelated again to the merry thing, but relevant
to the Saint Andre of it all. Remember how I
told you that the first visit to Guildford he went
(27:57):
with the secretary Malino, who was like also a scientist.
Mm hm, So Malino a few years later, not a
few years the next year, suffers a fit in the
House of Commons and he's treated by Saint Andre, and
Malino dies that night.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
He's treated by disgraced anatomist St. Andrews.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, man gets the friends. He's still a doctor, you know,
I'm still using the title court anatomist. He's treated by
disgraced anatomius Saint Andre. He dies that night, so maybe
you shouldn't have gotten gotten that court anatomus. And that
very night Saint Andrea elopes with his widow that very
(28:39):
night body not even called yet, So suspicion.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Loki the winner of the whole song.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I mean, that's right. Probably as you can imagine, one
of Malono's relatives accuses uh St Andrea of poisoning him,
but he like then sues and like wins an action
for defamation because he can't prove that he killed him
on purpose, even though he eloped with his widow right away. Yeah,
not great. But and then when unfortunately, when Elizabeth, that
(29:10):
widow dies, Saint Andre loses her inheritance, so then loses
access to her money he had already lost a ton
of other money in investments and a lot of his
belongings in a fire. So when he dies at age
ninety six, he's in an almshouse, so he doesn't have
a great go of it. He probably was pretty good
(29:30):
actually while he was married to Elizabeth. But over on
the whole, pretty disgraced dies in poverty, and after this
marry took thing. He claims that he never ate rabbit
again for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I wouldn't either, Yeah, yiesh, yeesh. Yeah, I mean started
from the bottom. Germany sweet talked, he did the whole
what a life he dies.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
He started as a servant. He was born in Switzerland
and was a servant. He had no money or title.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And he talked his way all the way through all
the wrongs.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
All the wrongs. If only he had understood the human
nature of a poor woman trying to get money and attention.
She's also twenty four. I don't know. People do stupid
things in the early twenties.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
True, including cheven animal parts of.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What. I'm gonna go on the record and say, I
don't think this was a good idea for her to do.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
No, And I would I feel like she also would
agree with that assessment.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I mean, she pretty much disappears from public view after this.
Good she gives birth to a baby girl apparently healthy,
which is good a case. So what a.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Cervix, what a servant?
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Bad? He could come back from this that a healthy
baby's being.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
What an immune system down there?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Honestly? Now, if ever I'm worried that I've kept a
tampon in too long, you're like, well, if Mary.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Talk could come back from all those animals.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah. Occasionally, the Duke of Richmond, who is like the
nearest major nobleman, would invite her to show her off
at dinner parties because she was like a tabloid figure.
So he would have dinner parties and be like, this
is the rabbit lady Mary. I mean, I don't think
it's not like she gets money, because we have the
record that in seventeen forty she's charged with the petty
(31:20):
theft of fowls of like chickens. She's acquitted, but again
she's like, I don't know, not doing great.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
She dies January thirteenth, seventeen sixty three, when she's like
six about sixty years old, and she's noted by the
parish as quote Mary Toft widow the imposterous rabbit. That's
like her notation. When she dies, we don't know where
her grave is, no grave found, probably lost or destroyed,
(31:47):
and that's kind of her sad life.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Well quite the hoax, Mary, Yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Was a hoax. It worked, unfortunately, the hoax. The reason
it took off was mostly because people wanted to make
fun of doctors. Yeah, like she had fooled these like
doctors who were pretty dumb and were ready to be
believe something kind of stupid, and then people mostly made
(32:15):
fun of them, and I think that's why the hoax
took off. It's like sometimes there's like a perfect storm
of something that that receives main main character of the
day energy where it's like, oh, I'll say remember even
though it's kind of in the news now, but by
the time this comes out, the cheating couple at a
cold Play concert, where it's like, on the whole, that's
not that big of a deal, but it really united
(32:37):
the internet because it's like it's such an easy target
of things we love to make fun of, yes, which
is like people in power, workplace scandals, cheating, like silling.
It like the.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Felt like getting caught, getting caught the way you least
expect it, so.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
It's like a perfect storm. And in this case, it
was a perfect storm, even though it's like on its
whole it's this is a sad story about like a
poor women going to very grotesque measures for money and
a little bit of attention. But because people got to
make fun of this, like foreign doctor and people didn't trust,
(33:12):
like the king who surrounded himself with German speaking nobody's
and people love a sex scandal like that. You know,
it's not sex, but it involves a vagino and people
think is funny at the time for a political cartoon,
it really captured the moment and had this lasting legacy
for centuries.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I also think it is like childbirth is just mysterious enough. Yeah,
you were saying that, like maternal imprintation is like material impression. Impression.
Like I read this thing that people used to believe
that kittens could like crawl up inside a woman. Oh,
(33:52):
and that like getting kittens removed was like Victorian was
like if you had to go get an abortion, you
were like, no, I was getting kittens removed. And I
read that on Tumblr when I was really young, and
I was like, that's fascinating, and then I've tried to
look for it and I can't ever find anyone ever
saying that that's true. So that might have just been
a thing someone made up on Tumblr. So if that's
(34:14):
not true, I think that is fake. But someone wrote
it on Tumblr once and it sounded so real and
I believed it.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
If you have any information on that, please share, because
that is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Doesn't that sound real?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Though it also does sound plausible. How people come up
with these sort of whole life Yeah, but also like
Victorian Air would come up with like polite explanations for
I was getting kittens removed, I was getting kittens removed.
I've never been able to find even the fake post
from Tumblr. I've never been able to find any mention
of it. It exists only in my mind. I think that.
(34:45):
Also a takeaway from the story is kind of how
unbelievable and how little we know about childbirth even now
where people because you can't really test on pregnant ladies
for legitimate ethical reasons, But that just means there's so
much recent that we don't have about pregnancy and childbirth.
Like I am someone who takes uh anti depression and
(35:07):
anxiety medication, and I had to go off them when
I was pregnant because they were like, we just don't.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Know, no one knows.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
They just no one knows the research. So they have
done the research for some of them, but the one
I was on specifically, they were just like is it
good or is it I mean, is it fine or
is it bad? We don't know, so you better not
take them just to be safe, which is nuts.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's crazy. So that's the and you know who really
could have used some antidepressants.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Oh my god, Mary very talked, Oh I really want to,
like you.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Imagine if you could just go back in time and
just hand out lexibro.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I also sort of am getting like a tie from
clueless vibe, like easily manipulated and just wants to be
loved and like wants a little bit of attention.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, I just don't.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
You just want to sit her down and be like Mary,
it's okay, yeah, just stop, let's like stop it. Give
her a massage and a warm bath, and like someone
to watch her kids while she takes a nap and
just have to work in the fields all day. Yes,
Because even when she was like at the peak of
her hoax, like even when it was like quote unquote working,
What that meant is she was being examined in probably
(36:16):
a very violating way by ten male strangers. So this
wasn't even a fun hoax. It was physically uncomfortable, probably
hurt a lot, a miracle she didn't die of an infection,
and probably very violating for And I hate that she
was manipulated by her husband and sister and mother in
law who were all like, yeah, let's do it. It's bad, yeah,
(36:38):
downer of a hoax. There's actually a novel about this,
which I didn't read because while I was doing historical research,
I didn't want to read a novel and then get
mixed up about anything that might not be real. But
I have this book, so I'm going to read it now.
It's called Mary Toft or the Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer.
So I'm going to read it, and I don't know
chat to you about it, probably Lizzie. Maybe I'll post
(37:00):
about it on the hoax Instagram account, which you should follow, yes.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
And a little behind the scenes information. This is the
first episode that we're recording since we've been like posting
on the host Hoax Instagram. We're live, it's happening, and
you guys have been so fun to interact with, so
please continue like tagging us and dming us and like
commenting and posting on our stories. We're having so much
fun talk to you guys.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And also our email address is just Hoaxthpodcast at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Our Instagram is at hoax the podcast message us.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Interact with us. Let us know if you know anything
about removing kittens.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yes, if you find any evidence of this Tumblr post
that I saw ten years ago, find it, send it
to us.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Probably the most vagina heavy episode of Hoax that we're
gonna do, but there's no guarantee.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
About it, Absolutely no guarantee.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Lizzie, where can the people find you?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
The people can find me on la zz zz z
a E. L og An dot substack dot com. If
you want to subscribe to my.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Newsletter, it's a really great newsletter.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I love you, Thank you very much. Dana, where can
we will find you?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Follow me on Instagram at Dana Schwartz with three z's
listen to Noble Blood. Additional show notes and sources are
in the episode description, and please if you are enjoying
this podcast support us just by rating, reviewing, subscribing, and
sharing it with friends.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Please do and please hoax responsibly. Hie Hoax is a
production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are Dana Schwartz and
Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young,
(38:41):
with supervising producer Rima L. K Ali and producers Nomes
Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was composed by
Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Thanks for listening.
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Folks,
it's a hug.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
No, I haven't seen me when us see.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we
wish were true.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
And truths that sound like lies.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm the ghost of Danish Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Show, Lizzie. Before we start on this episode, I want
to ask what your tolerance is for body horror? But
do get grossed out easily? Do have Do you watch House?
Did you watch The Pit?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I liked the Pit quite a bit. Okay, rhyme intentional.
I can close my eyes during body horror stuff. I
guess since this is audio medium, I can clue my ears.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, I'm not going to show you any photos, okay,
because this story takes place in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Okay, Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of gore or
body horror, but I understand that bodies decay and we
have blood inside of us.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Bodies are a horror, yes, and one just sort of overall.
Note before we start this episode, if you're someone who's
very sensitive to issues of fertility or miscarriage. This might
not be the episode for you because it involves pregnancy
and pregnancy loss and sort of pregnancy trauma. Okay, we're
going to start in a town called Godalming, which is
(01:40):
a very small market town fifty miles southwest of London.
We're in the seventeen hundreds, so this town is a
very very poor town and it's basically just like a
stagecoach stop and route to London. So the people who
are living there are living there very boring lives, but
they're seeing people in like glamorous London stage coaches come by. Okay,
(02:06):
so it's a it's not a great place to live
from what it sounds like. Our heroin for this episode
is a woman named Mary Toft. She lives with her
husband and their three young children. She got married when
she was seventeen to Joshua Toft, who was eighteen. He's
a clothier, which means he makes cloth, but work is
very hard to come by. She works in a hop field.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Okay. Hops is like a type of grain that you
make beer out of.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, okay, but she's like harvesting that for that, you know,
works in a field with a lot of other women
at this point in the story when we're starting, she's
twenty four years old. She has two living children and
one that has died, although details on which children are
living at what point in the story is a little tricky. Okay,
So by this point we believe she's had three pregnancies
(02:56):
and she's pregnant with her fourth child. Okay, and still
walk in two hours a day to get to the
hop field, working grueling hours and then walking two hours back.
Rough This is not a good life.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It doesn't sound like a fun life.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
No, she's she's going through it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So imagine like being pregnant, having two children at home
at least two, possibly three, a husband who is likely
out of work, and just like living this miserable existence
watching people in their fancy London carriages. In August of
seventeen twenty six, Mary has a miscarriage. Unfortunately, very sad,
(03:34):
very sad, a thing that happens to this day that
people don't talk about. So what's strange is that she
has this miscarriage in August, and in September, a month later,
she starts having the symptoms of labor. Oh, which is
not a thing that should be happening. Now, she's attended
by her mother in law, Ann Toft, and a neighbor.
(03:55):
Antoft is not like registered as a midwife in like
the parish registries, but she has, you know, has had
many kids I think sort of helps people out. Is
sort of a maternal figure. So it's not like Mary's
being treated by doctors yet, but she's being treated by
like the local women who can help her out. But
they do not know what is happening. Yeah, and so
they call what is known as a male midwife from
(04:17):
the nearby town of gil Guildford, which is like the
nearest not big town, but bigger town. And this doctor
or male midwife comes named John Howard, and he comes
to examine Mary Toft, and he sees that she has
given birth not to a human baby, but to strange
animal parts. Oh oh dear, which is not a thing
(04:40):
that happens. Nope, usually nope. And so John Howard reports.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
That usually not happens I've ever ever, not at all,
not at all. I would say like zero percent of
the lies.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, But John Howard is astonished and is taking note
of this thing that is happening, and over the next
few weeks he records that Mary Toft gives let's say
birth for lack of a better word, to a pig's bladder,
a cat's paw, the backbone of an eel, and then
multiple dead baby rabbits. And it's the rabbits that are
(05:15):
the most notable.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Listener, you can't see me, but I'm making a face
like that's gross.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's gross. I wanted to warn you before this episode.
It's it's pretty gross.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
That's pretty gross. And I'm not grossed out by miscarriage
or birth. I'm grossed out by dead baby rabbits coming
out of a human lady's.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Vagina, dead baby coming out of human ladies vagina.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That's gross. I'm gonna I think I'm okay to say that.
I don't think that makes me a bad feminist. I
think that's a little gross.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's gross. It's not a thing that should biologically happen.
People are confused, but they have an explanation, and aren't
they She's a witch.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Mary says that back in the spring when she was pregnant,
she was out weeding in the field and saw a
rabbit and she was hungry and craving rabbit meat, which
would have been really expensive and she wouldn't have been
able to afford it, And she chased the rabbit but
couldn't catch it, and then kept having super strong pregnancy
craving for rabbit meat, like to make into a stew
or pie, which is kind of like the beginning of
(06:15):
Rapunzel when the mom really wants that one like the
cabbage or whatever. Yeah, from the witch's garden, but anyway,
she says. A later doctor wrote in an interview that
this set her a longing for rabbit. Being then as
she thought five weeks gone with child, the woman charged
with longing for the rabbit that she couldn't catch, but
(06:38):
she denied it. She then dreamt of rabbits and had
a constant and strong desire to eat rabbit, but being
very poor and indigent, could not procure any. So that
was the idea of what caused this.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So like the power of her mind turned her like
half miscarried baby into like.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Rabbit, multiple baby rabbits. Maternal impression is what the name
of this was, and it was a fairly common belief
at the time. People thought that pregnant women could influence
their unborn babies with their thoughts and their experiences. Have
you heard of like Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man. Yes,
this is later, but his explanation for why.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
He was like his mom looked at an elephant.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
His mom was startled by an elephant, which again is
like a we think is like a silly story. And
I don't even know if he actually believed it, but
that was sort of the circus explanation. And in the
eighteenth century work on Midwiffery by this doctor John Mawbrey,
he advised women to avoid quote playing with dogs, squirrels, apes,
(07:44):
and etc. As this could lead to the birth of
vile creatures.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well, you know, you gotta be careful.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
What I kind of find interesting is this is the
seventeen hundred, so the scientific Enlightenment is happening. But I
think it's kind of important to remember that despite the
fact the way that we're sort of taught history in
schools where it's like, ah, this year the Scientific Enlightenment, Ah,
this year the the you know, uh Renaissance, Like these
things don't happen all at once. People don't just like
(08:12):
make a declaration and then everyone's mind is changed.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, and like people still are like feeding babies honey
and giving them botulism. Like, so like I would not
be surprised if like the next TikTok trend was like
my baby has like really wide set eyes because I
watched you know, too many Nature documentary.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah I was pregnant, but yeah, it's this. Also, I
think it also reinforces this idea that like the pregnant
woman is like has magical like mysterious powers. Yes, which
is I really hated when I was pregnant that sort
of like you got it, mama, go girl, like you're
a goddess, because I think it's condescending. Yes, I think
(08:55):
it's very like women are over here and can be mysterious.
Men will be in charge of politics and economics and
literature and like actual tangible but you're a goddess like you.
So that's why I sort of have like my it
makes my teeth hirt a.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Little, yeah, and like fanuous like palm fronds and like
feed you grapes and like don't take your mind seriously
but like focus on your belly.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah you go, girl, Mama, you're so mysterious. You're a
moon goddess. While over here, like men are doing like
art and commerce and politics. Sure, but all that's to say,
is the idea that she is having these dead rabbit
babies is not, like, on its face absurd. Okay, there
is a culturally understood explanation, but it's still amazing because
(09:43):
this is not something that happens every day. And over
the next few weeks, Howard the male midwife keeps delivering
these dead rabbits, and he writes to doctors and scientists
in London, and he's kept the eleven rabbits that he's
delivered pickled in jars on a shelf. Is she okay
in what way?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Like if there's dead rabbits? I mean, is she like dying?
She's like hamborhage, like is she like up at about?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
No? She seems fine And the leader a doctor will
be like, she's in pretty good humor. Okay, but yeah,
so the word gets out.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
October tenth, seventeen twenty six, there's the first newspaper notice.
Do you want to read this newspaper notice?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
From Guildford comes a strange but well attested piece of
news that a poored woman who lives at Gondolman near
that town, who has a husband and two children now
living with her, was about a month past delivered by
mister John Howard, an eminent surgeon and man midwife living
at Guildford, of a creature resembling a rabbit.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
The news is out. It's a pretty like level headed
news article, I would say, for a pretty unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Thing, free amble with like the punchline right at the end.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah right, oh yeah, doctor place creature resembling a rabbit born.
So King George the First decides that he's going to
send his court to anatomist, Nathaniel Saint Andre, to go investigate,
and he also sends along the Prince of Wales's secretary,
this guy Samuel Malino, who is a secretary but also
(11:18):
a scientist who measures these things called stellar parallaxes, which
are important and I do not understand them, but like,
good on him. That's like an important scientific discovery unrelated
to this.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So science is happening in this kingdom in some way.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, this guy Samuel Malino is doing a great job
somewhere else in unrelated matters.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Unrelated to whether or not women can give birth to
dead rabbits.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, but the important figure here, the real star of
the show is Nathaniel Saint Andre. Okay, and what you
need to know about him is even at the time,
he was a pretty controversial figure because my favorite sort
of description of him came from an article in the
(12:03):
Paris Review that described him as quote an opportunistic dilettante
with a taste for ornately embroidered shirts, which is just
like a great way to put someone down. He was
born in Switzerland, traveled Europe as a servant, and he
worked as a language teacher, a dancer, and a fencer,
like a fencing teacher, and he's sort of like a
(12:25):
charmer seducer type.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I am getting like a real Derek Blasberg vibe.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So when I say that this guy,
you know, traveled as a servant, language teacher, dancing tutor,
fencing tutor, you might not be thinking a surgeon or
court anatomist.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
No, I'm more thinking he is of the like the
softer arts, Like he is of the he is of
the social graces and the the finer things.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, And basically what happened is he's injured by a
fencing student, He's treated by a surgeon, and realized that
that guy was making a lot of money, so he
decided to pivot because he didn't think it seemed too hard,
and at the time it wasn't like there were med
school boards to deal with. Okay, So he just does
a perfunctory internship apprenticeship in London, sets up a practice,
(13:24):
and just charms his way all the way to the
King Great. And I think the context is important that
the king at the time is George the first. Who's
the first Hanover King. I'm going to put my noble
blood hat on just for a second. But did you
see the favorite Yes, so Queen Anne, the one that
Olivia Coleman is great Protestant. Okay, dies with no children, Yes,
(13:47):
very important in England that she had a lot of miscarriages.
She had a lot of miscarriages and in that movie
a lot of rabbits. But that is not historically actor.
That was just the director having some fun. Okay, she's
brought dies with no babies. They very important in England
at the time, and I'm brushing over a lot of
important stuff. They're the king and Queen can only be Protestant,
(14:09):
no more Catholics. So her nearest Protestant relative is a
German cousin. Who's the handovers. So that's George the first
comes over to England. He was not born in England.
He does not speak English very well at all. So
he's sort of this foreign German king that's coming over
to be King of England kind of on a technicality, okay.
(14:32):
And so this Saint Andre guy kind of represents everything
that English people hate about George the first because he's foreign.
He's like German speaking, and it's like charisma and fluff
over substance and science.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So it's like people are not thrilled with the king
right now, gotcha? And people are not thrilled that they
think he's kind of stupid and easily seduced by these
like charmers. Not popular, no, But Saint Andre arrives to Guildford,
sees Mary while she's in labor with her allegedly fifteenth rabbit.
He by this is from his account. He watches as
(15:10):
her stomach is pulsing and quivering like there is like
a living animal inside her, and then he sees the
sorry like dead animal pieces that are expelled and the
animal pieces are in pieces. Because his theory is that
it's the forces of the uterus.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's it's not good, it's no, that's sad, and I
want to know what's actually happening to this poor woman.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, and you asked how she's doing. He describes her
as having a sullen temper, but says that except for
when she was in labor pains, she quote laughed very
heartily with us, So okay, she's doing okay, okay. Saint
Andre takes some of the pickled rabbits back to the King,
(15:55):
and the King is this is amazing. He arranges for
Mary to be brought to London and give a pension
for her trouble, which I guess is just the thing
that happens if a medical anomally is happening to you.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, you know what I was thinking about recently is
how you you mentioned like the elephant man. We think
about how like oh, there used to be like freak shows. Yeah,
and like people pay to see the freak and like,
isn't it good that we've grown past that as a society,
And like, no, we haven't. We just have TLC.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
We have TLC and we have people doing it to
themselves on TikTok truly.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And like, yes, of course Mary Toff would have a
pension now it would be called like a sponsorship on Instagram,
she would be.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Like story time, here's how we keep birth rabbits. Yeah,
but the context I think also is like medical mysteries
and marvels were like a common attraction.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
People are bored human interest, Like, yes, I would be interested,
Like if this were happening, I would be like, what's
up with this, lady?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I mean A tidbit that I kind of think is
interesting is in seventeen seventy seven, the year that Paris
gets its very first newspaper, London already has three hundred
daily newspapers.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I was about to say that seems really late for
Paris to get his first news.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
They're too busy smoking, reading a book. Paris get together poetry.
But London is very much like a city of gossip
and tabloid journalism. People are going to coffee houses to
read the news, and this sort of thing is getting
attention and apparently a pension from the king. People even
at the time, and this, I feel like is a
theme for hoax or It's like rather than people just
(17:29):
being done back then, people even at the time are skeptical.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Mary is examined by a doctor named Richard Manningham, who
sees her having something like a seizure or fit. He
sees belly movement happening, something that lasts a little while
he does not quite know what it is. But people
also are skeptical because they examine the rabbits that Mary
delivers and sees that they have corn and hay and
(17:54):
grass in their stomach, So it's like these rabbits aren't
originating from inside of her. And also Saint Andre tests
the rabbit's lungs and determined that it had breathed air
like it had already. I don't know what happens to
lung tissue when it breathes air, but like I think
I think tests an floats which indicates something. So there's like,
(18:14):
how were these rabbits aren't being born inside her? Yeah,
they take Mary to a bathhouse in London. I don't
know why, not a hospital, but they take her to
a place called mister Lacy's Bagnio in lester Fields, which
is like.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It is a just try to get her to chill out, maybe,
but I also.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Think it's like a place that like she could be
examined within sort of not public, but she's being examined
by as many as ten doctors at a time. Which feels,
when you think about it, very invasive and is probably
very unpleasant for her. Okay, she doesn't give birth to
any more rabbits. Okay, but based on this sort of
(18:54):
fit and seizure that that doctor has, I don't I
don't know. I'm not going to diagnose some and posthumously,
but it seems like she's probably suffering from a bad infection.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
At the beginning of December, Saint Andre publishes his accounts
of these events and it becomes a London obsession. He
writes this public publication called a Short Narrative of an
Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits. But three days later it all
falls apart, okay, because a porter at the bathhouse reports
(19:27):
that either Mary or depending on the accounts, married sister
in law Margaret Toft, attempt to attempted to bribe him
into smuggling pieces of rabbit into the bath house, manning him.
The doctor basically confronts Mary and says if she doesn't
tell the truth, they'll need to do exploratory surgery on her,
(19:49):
which is a pretty bad threat.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Also, like without her consent, I mean, can't she just
be like no, you cannot do explore her surgery on me, like, I.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Think, I think he's bluffing. Yeah, I deeply hope he's bluffing.
The bluff works. She immediately breaks down and confesses that
it was a hoax the way she confesses. December seventh, again,
just a few days after Saint Andre published his big
account of this amazing thing happening, she publishes her own
(20:19):
apology and confession. She blames her husband, her mother in law,
and strangely, the wife of a local organ grinder for
giving her this idea and sort of pushing her into it.
To me, it seems like an insane hoax, but I
guess it was working, and it was like going to
give her a pension from the king, and it was
giving her a lot of attention. But the way she
(20:40):
frames it is she was scared and impressionable and trying
to make some extra money for her family. And the
idea was that because she had had these pregnancies in
this miscarriage, her cervix was open, yeah, and they were
putting dead animal pieces inside of her manually to be delivered.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Oh boy.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
One like modern day researcher points out that it's amazing
that she didn't die of a bacterial infection.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And also something horrific that I just want to acknowledge
is that Saint Andre and his account will talk about
how these animal pieces, some of them had their nails
still intact. Yeah, so this is like an incredible it's
a it's a hoax.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
And I'm putting you're even supposed to leave a tampon
in for very long. You're supposed to be really careful
with what you put up there.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, So this is like this woman is sort of
being tortured by this scam that her husband, mother in law,
sister in law, and I guess like a local organ
grinder is putting her up to. It is. Yeah, it's gross,
and but it worked in terms of the hoax temporarily.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I wonder if she just had like crazy post miscarriage
depression and was just like needed like attention and like
a break from the fields and.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Like, yeah, you know, also, her life is miserable. Yeah,
her life is boring, sad and miserable. If her one
of her children hadn't died by this point, one of
her children would die. She had a miscarriage. She walks
two hours back and forth her husband's unemployed manual labor
every day, making so little money they can't afford rabbit meat.
(22:20):
I mean, she lives a boring, miserable life. Someone probably
came to her with this idea and it's like, okay,
maybe it's and she was willing to endure this for
money and like a little bit of attention and excitement. Yeah,
I mean it's awful. It also makes me think of
have you seen the movie Catch Me If you Can?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Many times?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Delightful film, one of my favorites. I think it was
on my New York Times when You're like your top dad.
I love it. There's that scene that Tom Hanks is like,
I gotta know, how did you pass the bar? And
he's like, I studied, I passed the bar. That kind
of it's like, how is she delivering rabbit parties? The
rabbit part? Yeah, she is physically delivering rabbit parts. It's
(23:01):
not a sleight of hand routine, oh sure, yea. Or
it's like David it's a sleight of vagina vagina routine.
Or it's like David Blaine, like when he holds his
breath for like a long time, Like sometimes they are
not magic tricks. Sometimes he just like teaches himself sure, so, yeah,
this becomes a It was already a major story because
it was like this body horror sensation, but it's like
(23:24):
a perfect storm to become a massive story. The satirists
have a field day because they get to they get
to do their favorite thing. They get to make fun
of foreigners, the elite, and women all at once.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I mean, and not to be like as they should
stick it to her, but like you set yourself up
for that, Mary, like you're just shoving dead animal parts
up your lady bits. Like, yeah, people are gonna make
some jokes. The satirists have a field day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
They mostly love making fun of Saint Andre because he's
the silly foreigner. Great, that's their sort of famous target.
Mary is kind of framed as like a stupid victim,
even though she was the one who sort of did
the hoax on the doctor. She's sort of framed as
like a country bumpkin, and it's the doctors who are
stupid idiots. The most famous takedown is from an artist,
(24:20):
William Hogarth, who spoofs it as like the Adoration of
the Magi with like Tafta's Virgin Mary and the like
wise men are Saint Andre and his colleagues like get
it because they're they're not wise indeed, And the illustration
is titled caniculari, which is a double pun because the
(24:40):
Latin for rabbit is caniculous and vulva is kunitz you
might imagine, So it's very clever. And also it's like
because those are the roots, there's a similar word cony,
which is a ubiquitous sort of eighteenth century London slang
for both rabbit and female genitalia. So like the jokes
(25:01):
right themselves, the the the.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Kimmel monologue of this era would have just been hit
after hit after hit after hit.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's like a sex scandal. It's like a comedy sex scandal.
Like the absurdity and silliness of it is also why
it just keeps getting made fun of again, because Saint
Andre was already this figure that people hated and like
hated that he charmed his way all the way to
the king. But now there's like a vagina involved, was there?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Did he like lose his positions?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We will get get okay, But the satirists are also
they are making fun of Mary, but they're not framing
her as we said, as like conniving or conniving a
someone writes this like spooful, like you can't take her
down any farther, she's already pouring poor person who lives
(25:56):
in a nothing village and has a miserable life. Someone writes,
like a spoof confession by her, Like I don't even
know what the equivalent is, Like a spoof first person
confession called much ado about nothing that paints her as
like grasping and stupid and sexually promiscuous.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
The classics, the classics.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Again, like like I said, like you get to make
fun of stupid, slutty women and foreigners, everyone's favorite thing.
Mary is actually arrested as a quote notorious and vile
cheat for you know, fraud, and she sent to Bridewell Prison,
where people would pay almost to see her as a
zoo animal, like she would have to be like paraded
out to Like it's public humiliation by design, yeah, because
(26:38):
that's what they were doing at the time. There's entertainment.
It's like very much like Live by the Sword, Die
by the sword unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean, you know, here's that attention you ordered.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
She is eventually released after a few weeks no charges,
probably because pushing it further just would have embarrassed everyone
who felt for it. Yeah, because again like the king
and like the King's royal anantimus like had fallen from this,
so they just sort of like go back to your
no nowhere town.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and like get some clean underwear and like let
your servix close up and stop shoving things up yourself.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah. Please. Saint Andre, who you asked about, is publicly humiliated.
His royal duties stop, his salary is removed. He is
He tries to get another audience with the King, can't.
The King is like, I I'm not with this man anymore.
He does still get to keep the title of court Anatomist,
(27:32):
but I wonder if it is something almost like because
he's not getting a salary anymore, it's like you can
use it like New York Times bestseller, like once it
happens to one, so get the title forever. But he's
not getting a salary. King doesn't want to see him anymore.
But you want to hear the craziest part of the
story really unrelated again to the merry thing, but relevant
to the Saint Andre of it all. Remember how I
told you that the first visit to Guildford he went
(27:57):
with the secretary Malino, who was like also a scientist.
Mm hm, So Malino a few years later, not a
few years the next year, suffers a fit in the
House of Commons and he's treated by Saint Andre, and
Malino dies that night.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
He's treated by disgraced anatomist St. Andrews.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, man gets the friends. He's still a doctor, you know,
I'm still using the title court anatomist. He's treated by
disgraced anatomius Saint Andre. He dies that night, so maybe
you shouldn't have gotten gotten that court anatomus. And that
very night Saint Andrea elopes with his widow that very
(28:39):
night body not even called yet, So suspicion.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Loki the winner of the whole song.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I mean, that's right. Probably as you can imagine, one
of Malono's relatives accuses uh St Andrea of poisoning him,
but he like then sues and like wins an action
for defamation because he can't prove that he killed him
on purpose, even though he eloped with his widow right away. Yeah,
not great. But and then when unfortunately, when Elizabeth, that
(29:10):
widow dies, Saint Andre loses her inheritance, so then loses
access to her money he had already lost a ton
of other money in investments and a lot of his
belongings in a fire. So when he dies at age
ninety six, he's in an almshouse, so he doesn't have
a great go of it. He probably was pretty good
(29:30):
actually while he was married to Elizabeth. But over on
the whole, pretty disgraced dies in poverty, and after this
marry took thing. He claims that he never ate rabbit
again for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I wouldn't either, Yeah, yiesh, yeesh. Yeah, I mean started
from the bottom. Germany sweet talked, he did the whole
what a life he dies.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
He started as a servant. He was born in Switzerland
and was a servant. He had no money or title.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And he talked his way all the way through all
the wrongs.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
All the wrongs. If only he had understood the human
nature of a poor woman trying to get money and attention.
She's also twenty four. I don't know. People do stupid
things in the early twenties.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
True, including cheven animal parts of.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What. I'm gonna go on the record and say, I
don't think this was a good idea for her to do.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
No, And I would I feel like she also would
agree with that assessment.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I mean, she pretty much disappears from public view after this.
Good she gives birth to a baby girl apparently healthy,
which is good a case. So what a.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Cervix, what a servant?
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Bad? He could come back from this that a healthy
baby's being.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
What an immune system down there?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Honestly? Now, if ever I'm worried that I've kept a
tampon in too long, you're like, well, if Mary.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Talk could come back from all those animals.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah. Occasionally, the Duke of Richmond, who is like the
nearest major nobleman, would invite her to show her off
at dinner parties because she was like a tabloid figure.
So he would have dinner parties and be like, this
is the rabbit lady Mary. I mean, I don't think
it's not like she gets money, because we have the
record that in seventeen forty she's charged with the petty
(31:20):
theft of fowls of like chickens. She's acquitted, but again
she's like, I don't know, not doing great.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
She dies January thirteenth, seventeen sixty three, when she's like
six about sixty years old, and she's noted by the
parish as quote Mary Toft widow the imposterous rabbit. That's
like her notation. When she dies, we don't know where
her grave is, no grave found, probably lost or destroyed,
(31:47):
and that's kind of her sad life.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Well quite the hoax, Mary, Yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Was a hoax. It worked, unfortunately, the hoax. The reason
it took off was mostly because people wanted to make
fun of doctors. Yeah, like she had fooled these like
doctors who were pretty dumb and were ready to be
believe something kind of stupid, and then people mostly made
(32:15):
fun of them, and I think that's why the hoax
took off. It's like sometimes there's like a perfect storm
of something that that receives main main character of the
day energy where it's like, oh, I'll say remember even
though it's kind of in the news now, but by
the time this comes out, the cheating couple at a
cold Play concert, where it's like, on the whole, that's
not that big of a deal, but it really united
(32:37):
the internet because it's like it's such an easy target
of things we love to make fun of, yes, which
is like people in power, workplace scandals, cheating, like silling.
It like the.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Felt like getting caught, getting caught the way you least
expect it, so.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
It's like a perfect storm. And in this case, it
was a perfect storm, even though it's like on its
whole it's this is a sad story about like a
poor women going to very grotesque measures for money and
a little bit of attention. But because people got to
make fun of this, like foreign doctor and people didn't trust,
(33:12):
like the king who surrounded himself with German speaking nobody's
and people love a sex scandal like that. You know,
it's not sex, but it involves a vagino and people
think is funny at the time for a political cartoon,
it really captured the moment and had this lasting legacy
for centuries.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I also think it is like childbirth is just mysterious enough. Yeah,
you were saying that, like maternal imprintation is like material impression. Impression.
Like I read this thing that people used to believe
that kittens could like crawl up inside a woman. Oh,
(33:52):
and that like getting kittens removed was like Victorian was
like if you had to go get an abortion, you
were like, no, I was getting kittens removed. And I
read that on Tumblr when I was really young, and
I was like, that's fascinating, and then I've tried to
look for it and I can't ever find anyone ever
saying that that's true. So that might have just been
a thing someone made up on Tumblr. So if that's
(34:14):
not true, I think that is fake. But someone wrote
it on Tumblr once and it sounded so real and
I believed it.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
If you have any information on that, please share, because
that is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Doesn't that sound real?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Though it also does sound plausible. How people come up
with these sort of whole life Yeah, but also like
Victorian Air would come up with like polite explanations for
I was getting kittens removed, I was getting kittens removed.
I've never been able to find even the fake post
from Tumblr. I've never been able to find any mention
of it. It exists only in my mind. I think that.
(34:45):
Also a takeaway from the story is kind of how
unbelievable and how little we know about childbirth even now
where people because you can't really test on pregnant ladies
for legitimate ethical reasons, But that just means there's so
much recent that we don't have about pregnancy and childbirth.
Like I am someone who takes uh anti depression and
(35:07):
anxiety medication, and I had to go off them when
I was pregnant because they were like, we just don't.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Know, no one knows.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
They just no one knows the research. So they have
done the research for some of them, but the one
I was on specifically, they were just like is it
good or is it I mean, is it fine or
is it bad? We don't know, so you better not
take them just to be safe, which is nuts.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's crazy. So that's the and you know who really
could have used some antidepressants.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Oh my god, Mary very talked, Oh I really want to,
like you.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Imagine if you could just go back in time and
just hand out lexibro.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I also sort of am getting like a tie from
clueless vibe, like easily manipulated and just wants to be
loved and like wants a little bit of attention.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, I just don't.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
You just want to sit her down and be like Mary,
it's okay, yeah, just stop, let's like stop it. Give
her a massage and a warm bath, and like someone
to watch her kids while she takes a nap and
just have to work in the fields all day. Yes,
Because even when she was like at the peak of
her hoax, like even when it was like quote unquote working,
What that meant is she was being examined in probably
(36:16):
a very violating way by ten male strangers. So this
wasn't even a fun hoax. It was physically uncomfortable, probably
hurt a lot, a miracle she didn't die of an infection,
and probably very violating for And I hate that she
was manipulated by her husband and sister and mother in
law who were all like, yeah, let's do it. It's bad, yeah,
(36:38):
downer of a hoax. There's actually a novel about this,
which I didn't read because while I was doing historical research,
I didn't want to read a novel and then get
mixed up about anything that might not be real. But
I have this book, so I'm going to read it now.
It's called Mary Toft or the Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer.
So I'm going to read it, and I don't know
chat to you about it, probably Lizzie. Maybe I'll post
(37:00):
about it on the hoax Instagram account, which you should follow, yes.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
And a little behind the scenes information. This is the
first episode that we're recording since we've been like posting
on the host Hoax Instagram. We're live, it's happening, and
you guys have been so fun to interact with, so
please continue like tagging us and dming us and like
commenting and posting on our stories. We're having so much
fun talk to you guys.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And also our email address is just Hoaxthpodcast at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Our Instagram is at hoax the podcast message us.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Interact with us. Let us know if you know anything
about removing kittens.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yes, if you find any evidence of this Tumblr post
that I saw ten years ago, find it, send it
to us.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Probably the most vagina heavy episode of Hoax that we're
gonna do, but there's no guarantee.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
About it, Absolutely no guarantee.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Lizzie, where can the people find you?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
The people can find me on la zz zz z
a E. L og An dot substack dot com. If
you want to subscribe to my.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Newsletter, it's a really great newsletter.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I love you, Thank you very much. Dana, where can
we will find you?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Follow me on Instagram at Dana Schwartz with three z's
listen to Noble Blood. Additional show notes and sources are
in the episode description, and please if you are enjoying
this podcast support us just by rating, reviewing, subscribing, and
sharing it with friends.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Please do and please hoax responsibly. Hie Hoax is a
production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are Dana Schwartz and
Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young,
(38:41):
with supervising producer Rima L. K Ali and producers Nomes
Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was composed by
Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Thanks for listening.
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