ABSTRACT
Mary Toft (or Tofts) of GodaIming was said to have given birth from time to time to a (variously specified) number of rabbits. The Whitehall Evening-Post of 26 November printed an 'Extract of Letter from Mr. John Howard, Surgeon and Man-Midwife at Guildford, to a near Relation ... dated 22 November 1726,' in which he reported the delivery of the seventeenth rabbit, and then went on to say that 'last Tuesday' [15 November] Mr. St. Andre, his Majesty's Anatomist, who had been present and had assisted Howard, was 'satisfied in the 1"ruth of the wondrous Delivery: As was Mr. Molineaux, Secretary to the Prince, who was also here ...' The affair created the greatest excitement. Not only doctors were interested, but 'Great Numbers of the Nobility have been to see her' (London Journal, 3 December). The woman confessed to the fraud on 7 December, and was 'ordered to be prosecuted ... for being a vile Cheat and Imposter'.
