Crocodile Dung, Queen Anne’s Lace and Lysol

Written by Karry MacDonald

A History of Contraceptives
Part Two

This is a three-part article summarizing the past 4,000 years of women’s contraceptive practices.  And for the record, abstinence was never a choice given to women so it is not included.  Defying death, sin, laws and the medical community, women have forever sought control over their fertility and the spacing of their children’s births.

Ancient civilizations, with their potions, pessaries and rituals, grasped the concept and embraced the practice of contraception.  Early Christianity’s prohibition of contraception forced vital information, along with women’s power over their fertility, underground and into obscurity.

During the Renaissance, or Age of Enlightenment, the thirst to study classical writings, including those of Hippocrates and Dioscorides, produced a likewise renaissance in identifying the numerous plants described in the texts.  All ancient Greek, Latin, and Arabic classical writings were studied and culled for valuable information, though, as in the Medieval Ages, the translation of these ancient texts was not always performed by competent, knowledgeable, or objective translators.  This enthusiasm founded a passion in botanical gardens and fervor for the discovery of the plants of the New World and Asia.  One “new plant” Native Americans shared with the “civilized Colonists” was pennyroyal or “squaw mint”.  Pennyroyal’s properties as an emmenagogue were mentioned throughout the ancient texts, but were one of the hundreds of plants “lost in translation”.

With an increasingly heavy and merciless hand over the fertility and sex lives of those under its power, the Church sought to extinguish the botanical excitement.  Not surprisingly, information on contraceptives, and abortifacients, continued to be downplayed, or completely removed during translation, and is one theory proposed why the texts from the Renaissance are sparse on medicinal plants for contraception.  Another theory speculates that as university education began, the knowledge of plants for these purposes was relegated to “commoners”- midwives and uneducated women specifically.  Reliance on word of mouth, from woman to woman, mother to daughter, to hand down this valuable knowledge led to a steady decline of information passed on to subsequent generations.

Although medical texts from the Renaissance into the early 18th century included scant information on how to actively avoid conception, they nonetheless included lists of plants that women, who wished to conceive, should avoid eating, drinking or even touching.  This roundabout way of including contraceptive information could not have been lost on a woman searching for it.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, knowledge of contraceptive plants and substances continued to decline.  The gynecology and obstetrics authority often cited in this time period, Francis Mauriceau, would not include any information on contraceptives.  But he also failed to list plants and drugs that a pregnant woman should avoid to prevent unintended miscarriages.

The birth control movement began to flourish in America beginning in the 19th century with new contraceptive devices.  Modern manufactured diaphragms, spermicidal jellies, and douches were easily available.  Coitus interruptus was becoming more popular in the mid-1800’s, though now physicians rallied to quash it by condemning the practice as, again, immoral, and causing “general debility of brain and brawn” in men.

Stem pessaries (think large, blunt roofing nail!), both intracervical and intrauterine, gained increased use in America throughout the 19th century.  An IUD “craze” of sorts late in that century marketed stem pessaries made from soft and hard rubber, metal, ivory and – ouch - glass!  They could be purchased at drug stores or by mail order, could be self-inserted, easily removed or left in place, and could be used in “secrecy”.  These first intrauterine devices were marketed as supports for a prolapsed uterus, or to correct a “malpositioned” uterus, a diagnosis erroneously believed by male physicians to be a common ailment suffered by many women, thus causing little suspicion directed toward purchasers. Regardless of their supposed purpose, their contraceptive benefit was not overlooked, especially used in partnership with the plentiful douches then available.

Douches and vaginal suppositories regained popularity as the birth control method for most women from the 19th century through the mid-20th century.  However, the historically effective natural plant and herbal concoctions began to be substituted by new, “improved” commercial antiseptics and chemicals.  The syringes or applicators for the douches now came in all sizes, shapes, and with attachments for various other handy household uses, including a sprayer for houseplants.

And where were condoms?  The condom made its debut in 17th century Europe, but not as a contraceptive device.  It was used as a barrier against syphilis while visiting brothels.  These early condoms, sewed from animal intestines and fish membranes, were designed to be used, washed, dried, and used again, and again.  By the mid-1800’s, American males had their choice of condoms made from animal intestines, India Rubber or silk.  They were less expensive, though not free from defects.  In puritanical America, condoms continued to be associated by many with prostitution and illicit sex, but in the beds of “respectable” married couples condom use began to gain popularity as their contraceptive benefits were recognized.

In the late 19th century, sexual pleasure began to be publicly defined as possibly separate from just procreation. The increased availability of contraceptive information and devices fueled the moral outrage of a vocal minority that would rise to a fever pitch.  “Pious” Anthony Comstock, and his ilk, viewed birth control as obscene and dangerous to moral integrity, the same as pornography. The Comstock Law, enacted in 1873, outlawed the distribution of obscene materials and information through the U.S. mails, including contraceptive devices and information.  Control over fertility was forcibly and legally taken out of women’s hands, again, as it had centuries before.  Contraceptive information languished underground into the middle of the 20th century, but this time, vital information in the ancient texts truly faded away.
In Part Three, as the 20th century dawns, do modern women gain control of their fertility, and if so, at what cost?