Three or four minutes at the bedside
On November 15, 1726, Nathanael St André arrives at Guildford, Surrey, with Molyneux, secretary to the Prince of Wales. Letters from John Howard, a surgeon in the town, have drawn their attention to Mary Toft, a woman from Godalming said to be producing rabbits. St André wants to examine this extraordinary occurrence. After waiting three or four minutes, he says he removes the skinned trunk of a rabbit about four months old. His account specifies:
No Person but my self touch'd her, from the first time that I had examined her, to the time of her being deliver'd by me: Her Pains were pretty smart, and lasted for some Minutes; they went off the Moment she was deliver'd, and she seem'd chearful and easy; walked by herself from the Bed-side to the Fire, and sat on a Chair, where I examined her; and found, that in the Course of the Fallopian Tubes, there were some Inequalities, but more sensibly on the right side of her Belly: which made me conjecture that the Rabbets were bred in those Tubes, and only came into the Uterus, when they gave her those Agitations, which, according to the account of Mr. Howard, and of several other Persons, were sensibly felt many Hours before their Exclusion.
St André follows Toft from the bed to the fire, then describes examining her on a chair. He has witnessed an extraction; he then proposes formation in the tubes as an explanation, calling it a conjecture himself. The earlier sensations reach him through Howard and others.
The period during which he claims to have been the only person touching her starts with his own examination. Before those few minutes, his account also depends on what he has been told. The body he examines therefore stands at the meeting point of his procedures, the reported pains and a history begun without him.
Nathanael St André · A Short Narrative · second edition, John Clarke, 1727 T01: p. 8 (PDF 13); T02: p. 9, 10 (PDF 14, 15) Attributed summary and editorial connections by Clipped. Quoted paragraphs reproduce the identified English excerpts under the ledger’s normalization policy. T02: continuous selection from “No Person” to the paragraph end. Observation window, pains and reported earlier sensations retained. The preceding organ tests are not quoted. English quotations: long s and ligatures normalized, line wraps and page-break hyphenation joined, punctuation spacing normalized; spelling and errors retained. Italics, signatures and catchwords not reproduced. Original Clipped French translations checked against selected English; no independent human review. Wellcome Collection. Historical text and scan: Public Domain Mark, according to the retained item records. Original French translations by Clipped. No illustration is included.Added context: St André, pp. 4 and 7 (PDF 9 and 12), visually checked for John Howard, Guildford/Surrey, Godalming (printed Godlyman), Molyneux and the November 15 arrival. This setting does not change the quoted selections.