The “rabbit test” refers to the late 1920s method of injecting a
woman’s urine into a female rabbit to test for pregnancy. Within
several days of doing the test, the rabbit’s ovaries will show
changes if the woman is pregnant. The changes occur due to the
presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is a hormone
that occurs in the uterus when a woman’s egg is fertilized.
The expression “the rabbit died” was commonly used to mean
that a woman was given a rabbit test and was found to be pregnant.
However, although popular, the term is incorrect as the rabbit died
whether the woman was discovered to be pregnant or not. The animals
had to be killed in order to examine the ovaries. This test was
later revised so that ovarian changes could be checked for on live,
rather than dead, rabbits.
Blood tests and home pregnancy urine tests replaced the
rabbit test. Both of these methods also test hCG in the body, but
do not use rabbits at all. In contrast to the other methods, the
rabbit test is a bioassay, or animal-based, type of test.
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Dr. Maxwell E. Lapham was one of the medical researchers who
worked on the development of the rabbit test. He was the director
of the Division of Medical Extension and then dean emeritus at the
Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, the
United States. Dr. Lapham died in 1983 at the age of 83.
The rabbit test is also known as the Friedman test after
Maurice H. Friedman. Friedman, a German, was the first person to
use rabbits for pregnancy tests. Friedman developed his test from
the first pregnancy test, the Aschhiem-Zondek, used on mice.
The Aschhiem-Zondek pregnacy test was invented by Germans
Selmar Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek. It was Zondek who first
discovered the hormone hCG in pregnant women. Friedman’s rabbit
test was found to be more accurate than the Aschheim-Zondek
pregnancy tests done with mice.
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