It didn’t have to be a rabbit.
I know a woman who worked in a research facility in Russia in the 70’s and 80’s. Pregnancy kits were expensive or unobtainable there at the time so women in the facility who thought they might have a bun in the oven would inject their urine into research mice. Kill the mouse, look at the uterus, if it had swollen up – thinking a fertilized egg was coming down the pipes – the women knew they were pregnant. Can’t understand why we ever used loveable and relatively expensive rabbits when their little cousins were available.
Welcome to the SDMB, Digit Unfortunately, you have posted your thread in the wrong forum. Since your comment deals with the column In old-time pregnancy tests, did the rabbit really die? , it will soon be moved to Comments on Cecil’s Columns.
But don’t take it personal. 
Just a WAG: maybe labs used rabbits because their uteruses (uteri?) are bigger and it’s easier for a minimum-wage lab worker to eyeball it and tell whether or not it’s enlarged.
Or maybe because they’re easier to handle, being bigger and calmer.
And off it goes. Thanks, folks.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Or maybe that’s how they retired cosmetic test rabbits…
http://www.theonion.com/onion3643/lab_rabbit_recommends.html
[[Can’t understand why we ever used loveable and relatively expensive rabbits when their little cousins were available.]]
My dad was a machinist working next to a lab that had these rabbits used for pregnancy tests. Once one of the lab workers asked him if he had any way of sharpening the needles they used (no disposable syringes in those days), and he did, and saved them a lot of money – not having to replace the needles so soon.
So my father is visiting the lab one day and asks them what they do with these rabbits after they euthanize them? Toss em in the incinerator, they say. Perfectly good rabbits. So my dad (a Fort Stockton, Texas boy) brings one home and cooks it up, and it tastes like ether. He goes back to the lab and talks them into finding another way to kill the rabbits that doesn’t affect their taste.
I found out as an adult that I spent much of my childhood eating rabbit, thinking it was chicken.
“It didn’t have to be a rabbit. I know a woman who worked in a research facility in Russia in the 70’s and 80’s. Pregnancy kits were expensive or unobtainable there at the time so women in the facility who thought they might have a bun in the oven would inject their urine into research mice. Kill the mouse, look at the uterus, if it had swollen up – thinking a fertilized egg was coming down the pipes – the women knew they were pregnant. Can’t understand why we ever used loveable and relatively expensive rabbits when their little cousins were available.”
Digit, color me skeptical. As told the story you present is unlikely to predict the pregnancy status of the human who gave the urine. First, you would need to look at the ovaries rather than the uterine horns. The uterine horns of mice do not necessarily swell in expetation of receiving fertilized eggs. However, the ovaries would have an indication of ovulation if that had recently occurred. Also, a mouse has an estrous cycle of four days. On any given day if you looked at the ovaries of a given mouse you have a 1 in 4 chance of seeing evidence of ovulation.
Rabbits on the other hand are induced ovulators and will normally only ovulate as the result of copulation. The hCG in pregnancy urine circumvents the need for the rabbit to be mated in order to ovulate. This is why they are used for this test. If the rabbit ovulated then there was hCG in the urine and the woman is pregnant.
“Or maybe because they’re easier to handle, being bigger and calmer”
DDG, I have worked with rabbits and mice. Rabbits have bigger teeth and very sharp claws and in my experience are not very calm. I will work with mice any day over rabbits.
John