Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits: A True Medical Mystery

By Clifford A. Pickover

Book Overview

This can justifiably be called history's most fascinating medical mystery, a dark, true-life Alice in Wonderland tale with a streak of horror. Why should we care today about a poor, eighteenth-century... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573927945
• ISBN13: 9781573927949
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Strange biological realities

I'm an avid Pickover fan, and I found this book to be a very interesting diversion from his usual hard science writing. As the book reports, Mary Toft was a young woman who lived in the 17th century. She had a peculiar passion and appeared to give birth to something inhuman. From that moment onward, she was plunged into a world she never dreamed existed -- a dark, medical subculture flourishing in the King's court. Mary careened out of control, a pawn in the hands of the powerful while she forced her contemporaries to question their most basic beliefs. This book describes many medical oddities, modern day hoaxes, and sexual superstitions. Mary Toft was the Monica Lewinsky of the 1700s. Both women elicited a barrage of media coverage, jokes, and national shame. Monica's story cast a bad light on American politics; Mary's affair placed the eighteenth-century London physicians in a bad light. Other topics discussed in the book: multiple personality disorder, child abuse, hypnosis, repressed memories, Torquemada, sexuality in the Bible, fringe science, psychic surgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Fox sisters, spiritualism, Piltdown man, Joanna Southcott, Joanna, virgin birth, alligators in sewers, gerbils, LSD, sooterkins, cadaver art, UFOs, garadiavolo, Cottingley Fairies, Cardiff giant, Feejee mermaid, cryptozoology, witchcraft, vomiting frogs, obsessive compulsive disorder, rectal objects, dinosaur fossils, the state of medicine in the 1700s, the effect of the mind on how we perceive reality...

Wow, what a topic!

I bought this book the other day, and I have to say I never saw anything like it. The best part was that the story is true. There really was Mary Toft who seemed to give birth to rabbits. One warning: there are some strange "side stories" here that you might need a strong stomach to read. But when you finish the book, you will have learned a lot about history and medicine and science. Well written. Fast pace. Nice figures.

A fascinating survey of medical oddities and realities.

18th century London physicians were embroiled in scandal when one Mary Toft seemingly gave birth to inhuman creatures. The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits isn't just a focus on one woman's odd story, it examine 18th century science and health and the influence of superstition and politics on facts. Other medical mysteries of modern times, such as psychic surgeries, are analyzed in the process, making for a fascinating survey of medical oddities and realities.

Quite a unique experience

Cliff Pickover takes his readers on a very unique journey in his book "The Girl Who Gave Birth To Rabbits". On the surface, the story is of Mary Toft, a simple woman in England who gains country wide fame for giving birth to what appear to be rabbits. In his exposition, Dr. Pickover touches on the various perspectives of the characters--the nobility, people in the medical profession as well as those of us that are looking at the story in hindsight. This gives the story a very unique flavor which ultimately forces the reader to think about the text, and come to a better understanding of the world in which Mary Toft lived as well as the world in which we live.

The fabric of reality tears in this awesome true story

This book is immensely exciting, filled with all sorts of biological and historical trivia. But the book will also change you. It will make you think about the boundaries of what is possible and what is not possible, about what is superstition and what might be real, hidden on the borderlines of science. This is one of the most interesting books I have read and should appeal to anyone interested in humanity's place in our vast universe. I wish I could go back in time and meet Mary Toft so that I could ask her more questions, comfort her, and teach her about humanity. Cliff Pickover has written over 20 books, but I think this book is his most unusual book.