[Peaches]

Originally posted by Lisa@Nov 12 2003, 11:38 PM
Question tho...why 'the rabbit died'? I've heard that expression only once before and I didn't understand it then either...lol.

(I'm so helpful :P )
The origins of the "rabbit test" lie with the discovery in the 1920s that a woman starts producing a hormone known as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) shortly after a fertilized egg implants itself in the uterine wall. (It was later discovered that the presence of hCG causes the placenta to produce progesterone after implantation, necessary to prevent rejection of the developing embryo.) In 1927, medical researchers found that not only is hCG present in the urine of pregnant women, but that female rabbits injected with urine containing hCG would, within a few days, display distinct ovarian changes. Thus the "rabbit test" was born, and with it the misconception that the rabbit's death was an indicator of a positive result. In those early tests, the rabbit always died, because the animal had to be killed before its ovaries could be examined. Later refinements to the test enabled clinicians to inspect the ovaries without having to kill the rabbits first, but as the example cited above demonstrates, the misconception that the test rabbit died only if the woman was pregnant is still with us today, even though the "rabbit test" itself is not.