Page 66 - Tropic Magazine Issue 32

TROPIC • REGIONAL HISTORY

1

Cane toad tests He told Tropic the toads produced quicker
results and could be used multiple times.
SCIENCE “The woman would bring the sample into
the lab in a paper bag with her name on
The use of cane toads for it, where it was mixed with pure alcohol
pregnancy detection led to high and then injected into the cane toad,”
demand for the introduced he said. “All they had to do was check the
pests in the 1950s. cloaca* a few hours later and if there was
sperm, then the lady was pregnant.
Words: Renee Cluff
Before the days of home pregnancy tests,
toads were the most effective tool for It was
doctors to confirm pregnancies. 2
A woman’s urine was injected into 99 per cent foolproof Planeloads of toads were then sent to
cane toads and if it contained the every corner of Australia.
pregnancy hormone, the amphibians Tony Kloss “They had special wooden crates which
produced sperm. The research required would convey about 12 toads with their
to make this feat possible was undertaken soft toys and so on,” Dr de Costa joked.
by the late Cairns pathologists Bill “When they injected the female rabbits, “They took them out to the airport every
Horsfall and Louis Tuttle inside an old they had to wait and then operate to evening. They only sent male toads so
Queenslander laboratory located on what check the ovaries and they had to kill they couldn’t reproduce.”
is now Cairns High School’s sporting the animal.” By the 1970s, the industry had crashed,
field. They built on earlier science The pathologists’ efforts sparked a mini- with toad pregnancy tests replaced by
involving South African frogs and the industry of cane toad catching, with local litmus paper. Dr de Costa said the work
previous mainstream method of using children sent into the region’s cane fields in Cairns paved the way for modern-day
rabbits. Mr Tuttle’s long-time friend, to collect the males. “The males sit up testing methods. “Now we have a test that
Tony Kloss, teamed up with pioneering much more erect than the females,” you can use at home,” she said. “It’s the
Cairns gynaecologist Caroline de Costa Mr Kloss explained. “That was the main same principle, though.”
to write about the era of toad way of telling the difference.” The children
pregnancy tests. were initially paid sixpence per toad but *cloaca
as Dr de Costa told Tropic, the price Pronounced ‘kloh-AY-kah’, it is a posterior cavity for
the release of both digestive and genital products.
went up. “The children staged a protest Source: Oxford Dictionary
and they ended up getting a shilling,
which is about the equivalent of a dollar 1. Credit: University of Queensland
2. Bill Horsfall and Louis Tuttle at the
in today’s money,” she said. Cairns Base Hospital pathology lab in 1955

66 • Tropic • Issue 32