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Speaking of the frog test, there is apparently an old expression "the rabbit died" in English to refer to someone being pregnant. The original test involved inj
by tdeck 1y ago
Speaking of the frog test, there is apparently an old expression "the rabbit died" in English to refer to someone being pregnant. The original test involved injecting urine into a rabbit, killing it after a few days, and examining it's ovaries
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_rabbit_died https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_rabbit_died
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_test
The frog was an improvement since you didn't have to kill the frog (apparently they could survive the urine injection).
FWIW the rabbit always died whether you were pregnant or not :(.
- OptionOfT 1y agoThe rabbit died because it had to be autopsied to inspect the ovaries. Whether a woman was pregnant or not didn't determine whether the rabbit died.
- tdeck 1y agoWhat an astute reading of the text of my comment.
- OptionOfT 1y agoI reacted to: > FWIW the rabbit always died whether you were pregnant or not :(. It's not that an injection of urine if a pregnant woman kills the rabbit. It's like the rabies test on the brain. We cannot look at the brain before you're dead, because the act of looking at it would kill you.
- jwiz 1y agoHe says in his comment that they inject the urine, then, a few days later, they kill the rabbit.
- jibal 1y agoThose weren't his words, and his actual words (which he quoted above, acknowledging their ambiguity) could be (mis)read as meaning that injecting the urine killed the rabbit a few days later, especially since he also wrote "apparently [frogs] could survive the urine injection".
- tdeck 1y agoI do still find it odd that injecting urine into the frog repeatedly is OK for the frog, but perhaps the volume was quite small.
- tdeck 1y ago> The original test involved injecting urine into a rabbit, killing it after a few days, I can see how this might be read in two different ways now.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- smcameron 1y ago> there is apparently an old expression "the rabbit died" in English This shows up in the Aerosmith song, "Sweet Emotion"
- Loughla 1y agoI was watching M* A* S* H* with residents in a nursing home last week and Hot Lips thought she might be pregnant. The Colonel was concerned because they only had one rabbit and it was Radar's pet. That made zero sense to me at the time.
- kens 1y agoIn case anyone is worried about the rabbit :-), they ended up using Radar's pet rabbit for the pregnancy test, but removed the ovaries surgically for examination rather than killing the rabbit.
- fHr 1y agoTIL, poor rabbits :(
- bobbiechen 1y agoThe rabbit always dies :( I always think of this short story now: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/ https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/
- saalweachter 1y agoI assumed that the line "can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died" was referring to a failure to perform the rabbit test -- the rabbit they were using for the test died before the ovaries would have a chance to enlarge, therefore it was inconclusive, therefore it couldn't be proved the singer of the song got the woman in question pregnant.