In the autumn of 1726, Mary Toft, a poor woman from Godalming, Surrey, made a claim that stunned the British medical establishment: she alleged that after being startled by a rabbit while pregnant, she had given birth to several animal parts. Local surgeon John Howard investigated and was baffled when he personally delivered several dead rabbits over the following weeks. News reached London, intriguing King George I, who dispatched his royal anatomist, Nathaniel St.
André, to investigate. St. André was thoroughly duped, writing a treatise declaring the phenomenon genuine and bringing Toft to London as a medical marvel.
However, skepticism soon mounted. Sir Richard Manningham, a leading obstetrician, noticed suspicious details, including rabbit meat containing hay in its digestive tract. The scheme unraveled when a porter was caught trying to sneak a small rabbit into Toft's room.
Under threat of a painful surgery, Toft confessed that she had manually inserted dead rabbits into her birth canal to fake the labor. The scandal humiliated the medical community, ruined St. André's reputation, and became a popular subject for satirists like William Hogarth.