It was while teaching physiology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in the early 1930's that Dr. Friedman developed his test for pregnancy, which became widely known as the "rabbit test."
In the test, a woman's urine sample was injected into a female rabbit. If the woman was pregnant, the urine would contain hormones that would cause formations, known as corpora lutea and corpora hemorrhagica, in the rabbit's ovaries. The popular belief that the rabbit died as a result of a positive test itself was not true. Rather, the rabbit would be killed before a laboratory cut it open to determine whether the ovary formations had developed.
Fuente del contexto
New York Times
Tipo de fuente
Periódico
Autor
Marvine Howe
Título de la fuente
Dr. Maurice Friedman, 87, Dies; Created 'Rabbit' Pregnancy Test
Refers to a woman being pregnant. Its origins go back to the times when a pregnancy could be determined by the decease of a rabbit due to a toxic reaction when injected with the presumably pregnant woman’s urine.