Customer Reviews

The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits: A True Medical Mystery

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I'm a bit disappointed by this book.

Although the idea of a girl giving birth to non-human creatures is interesting and sensational enough, I get the feeling that more could have been done with the subject matter. It's a fun enough read, as promised by the publisher's blurb, but there's very little meat here. While reading it, I had the feeling that the book was slipping through my fingers, as it were. The author kept hinting that something amazing was about to happen, but it never really did.

The general point of the story seems to be that even experienced medical men and scientists can be fooled if they really want to believe in something, but the premise is not explored anywhere near deeply enough to make this book really stand out.

There ARE some attempts to draw parallels with modern hoaxes and to put the story in some sort of context, but this comes toward the end of the book and seems like a bit of an afterthought. It almost feels as if the author was trying to justify himself on the eleventh hour.

The most disappointing part is that the author's sources (especially the brilliant Simons Book of Sexual Records) seem to be more interesting than his actual end product. The various bits of trivia sprinkled throughout the book in order to provide a background to the story are to my mind at least, more interesting than the story itself.

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...

I've enjoyed other books by Pickover, and this one is on an interesting topic, but one gets the feeling that the book was slapped together in quite a hurry. There are numerous typos and even some grammatical errors ("affect" instead of "effect" in one place), which suggest a lack of care. While Pickover attempts to put the case of Mary Toft in a historical context, the way in which he intersperses such information with the main tale of Mary Toft just doesn't let the book flow well. All in all, there is more surface than depth here. Many pages are spent just listing examples of strange animals and odd births from the past, much as if the author had made a number of index cards in his researching and then just decided to slap them down here and there to pad the book. The writing style is not particularly appealing - it's as if one quickly dictated one's thoughts just to get them down and didn't go back to reread and rewrite. If there was editorial attention to this book, it doesn't show. Still, it's a quick and easy read, just not nearly as good as I had expected it to be.

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.

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.

My first exposure to this author. Well researched, but I think it could have used some more colorful writing. I know it is more of a historical document, but I reallt think Mr. Pickover could of had a lot more fun with it. Plus, there are many, many medical mysteries that aren't even touched. I wish he would have more compare and contrasting. Easy read.

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.

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.