Old Pregnancy rabbit tests?

Question

Wouldn't the rabbit die anyway if someone injected human blood in them be it from a pregnant woman or not they would still die because it was from a different species??? To me that seems like a dumb test! I can't think that DR's were that dumb to not think the animal would not die.
What if someone injected dog blood into a human would the human not die???

Answer 1

It's not blood It's urine.....

Answer 2

NO, the rabbit doesn't have to die.

Injecting foreign blood into another life form’s system may not necessarily be fatal; the body could break down the blood solution. Without the other systems of the body to call upon foreign blood cells and antibodies won’t work well. They will try to attack the new body, but they will quickly die in the process.

But rabbits don't die when a pregnant woman's URINE is injected into them. Instead the presence of the hormone affects the rabbit’s ovaries, making them think that the female rabbit is pregnant. The reason the rabbit has to die is so a dissection can be performed to check the ovaries.

In an episode of MASH Margaret Houlihan needed a pregnancy. But, Radar feed the test animals and was attached to the rabbit. So Hawkeye performed surgery, under anesthesia, on the rabbit to check her ovaries and then sewed her back up as good as new (but a little sore).

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Test
"The rabbit test was an early pregnancy test developed in 1927. It consisted of injecting the tested woman's urine into a female rabbit, then examining the rabbit's ovaries a few days later, which would change in response to a hormone only secreted by pregnant women. The hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), is produced during pregnancy and indicates the presence of a fertilized egg; it can be found in a pregnant woman's urine and blood. The rabbit test became a widely used bioassay (animal-based test) to test for pregnancy. The term "rabbit test" was first recorded in 1949 but became a common phrase in the English language.

Modern pregnancy tests still operate on the basis of testing for the presence of the hormone hCG. Due to medical advances, use of a rabbit is no longer required.

It is a common misconception that the injected rabbit would die only if the woman was pregnant. This led to the phrase "the rabbit died" being used as a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test. In fact, all rabbits used for the test died, because they had to be surgically opened in order to examine the ovaries. While it was possible to do this without killing the rabbit, it was generally deemed not worth the trouble and expense. One notable exception, albeit fictional, is an episode of the television series M*A*S*H. A rabbit belonging to Radar O'Reilly was used to test for pregnancy in Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan. To assuage Radar, rather than killing the rabbit, Hawkeye Pierce performed surgery under anesthesia.

The Aerosmith song "Sweet Emotion" refers to the test: "Can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died."

Answer 3

I don't believe this at all but this is from the website
http://www.peeonastick.com


What's the deal with "the rabbit dying"? Once upon a time, HPT's did not exist. (What people like us did in their spare time we may never know.) To determine if a woman was pregnant, her urine was injected into your ordinary garden-variety (female) rabbit. (Get it? Garden-variety? Rabbit? Like bunnies in your gar-- oh, fine ;) If the woman's urine contained hCG (pregnancy hormone), the rabbit's ovaries would react by producing little pockets of blood. (These were harmless to the rabbit.) Unfortunately, this was in the day before see-through rabbits, so the only way to see the ovaries was to kill the rabbit, cut her open, and peek inside. So, the rabbit actually died whether or not the woman was pregnant. Somewhere along the line that little detail was lost, however, and "the rabbit died" became slang for "being pregnant."

Hmm. Somehow I don't think "deadrabbit.com" has quite the same ring as "peeonastick.com" . . .

Answer 4

No blood was injected, it was the urine of a pregnant woman. Also, the rabbit was then killed to be disected. Thus, it did die regardless of the outcome, but it did not die from the injection. Here are links to a couple of places you can read about what the test actually involved.

Answer 5

well,I'm not sure where you got your info,but it was urine that was injected into the rabbit and no,only hcg and progesterone high level urine would kill the rabbit...but your right,its a strange idea...