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We have something strange for you. Something odd and out of the way, and we absolutely loved it.
It’s the Platanna, or more commonly known as the African Clawed Frog.
Did you know that the earliest (and very reliable) pregnancy test was a frog? This phenomenon, found in Africa, was used from the 1940’s to the 1960’s. The popularity of this test led to a groundbreaking scientific revolution.
The Hogpen Discovery
The discovery began with a British scientist (after whom the test was named) in South Africa began looking into the African Clawed Frog, or the Xenopus Laevis.
Hogpen learned, whilst teaching in the country, that the African Clawed Frog were highly sensitive to hormonal changes, finding out that injecting a female with a hormonal stimulant would trigger its ovulation within hours. This soon led to the discovery that this phenomenon would serve as a pregnancy test.
Research begins
Shortly after its discovery, Hogpen and a fellow geneticist, Francis Crew, imported roughly 1500 African Clawed Frogs to the United Kingdom from South Africa. They began their research, and initially found that their most challenging task at hand was figuring out how to raise these frogs in a lab to make them more readily available for doctors to order. This took them two years.
The Hogpen Test
The test was fairly simple, similar to how tests were done earlier. Doctors injected a sample of woman’s urine into the back of the frog. If the woman was pregnant within 12 hours to a full day, the frog would lay eggs.
Of course, women couldn’t just walk into a pharmacy and order a frog. They would go to a doctor, who would then order a frog from one of the labs. The labs produced tens of thousands of tests over a period of just over two decades.
This instantly became the preferred method of testing compared to the other methods for a multitude of reasons, such as requiring only one injection, the turn out for results were quicker, and the frogs didn’t have to be killed and examined. Not to mention that this was also a very cheap method, both to raise and maintain. The Hogpen test was also the most accurate reading, very nearly 100% accurate.
This, as previously mentioned, became the most popular test for just over two-decades, until an animal-free test came along around the 1960’s that was cell-based.
The Older Tests
Of course, there were older, more archaic pregnancy test methods before the African Clawed Frog. They were conducted by injecting five of a selected animal (rodents and rabbits were popular) two times a day for three days, and then they were dissected and their ovaries were examined.
Although the frogs are no longer needed for tests, they are still highly examined and used for scientific research, mainly for genetic based studies.
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