Birth Control in History

[Misfit]

[quote=""diamondlil""]I've seen something about stones being used to prevent conception but I can't remember where.[/quote]

I remember that being mentioned in MG's Henry VIII. Catherine Howard (I think?)

[LCW]

I would think the sponge soaked in something acidic would work quite well, wouldn't it? Also you'd think that a lot of those methods would be pretty effective or women would be popping out babies every year. My Mom didn't use birth control and got pregnant 14 times!!! She had five miscarriages so there are only nine of us but 14 times is a lot of pregnancies!

This whole subject reminds me of what incredible damage lack of adequate birth control and control over one's own reproductive cycle can do to women and society in general. I'm so perplexed about how in the 21st century women's rights can still be in jeopardy. Have we learned nothing from history?

[annis]

I read somewhere else while researching that putting lettuce leaves under one's husband's pillow was a preventative in that it ummm.... made him unable to rise to the occasion!

is this why men have such an ingrained aversion to salad, perhaps, EC?

[ellenjane]

It's been a very long time since I've read the book, but I remember the main character in The Physician, by Noah Gordon, fashioning himself a condom out of sheepskin.

[Spitfire]

[quote=""Telynor""]following all of the rules laid down by the Catholic church. All of the questions lead to a center box stating STOP! SIN! and the final question, if answered properly, reads: Go on and do it, but try to remember that it is just for conceiving and try not to enjoy it too much![/quote]

Oh my goodness, that is too funny! But it probably wasn't for the populace who were trying to be good Catholics at the time.

[annis]

Not long ago I read an interesting article about a herb used by the ancient Greeks and Romans which had such a reputation for its contraceptive powers that it was harvested to the point of extinction!
The last remaining stalk of this herb was reputedly snipped and sent to Emperor Nero as a "curiosity," and thus ended six hundred years of reliable birth control.

This herb was called silphium or laserwort, and was a type of fennel.Though silphium is no longer around, modern studies of the closely related plant asafetida show a 50 percent success rate in preventing implantation of fertilized eggs in rats, and it's nearly 100 percent effective when fed to them within three days of mating. Likewise, studies of wild carrot have shown that it blocks production of progesterone, necessary for the uterus lining to maintain the fetus. The seeds of Queen Anne's Lace are still used as a birth control method today.

It adds new significance to the poem by the Roman Catullus in which he answers Lesbia, his married lover, who asks how many kisses he'll be content with. Naturally Catullus makes the obligatory comparison to the number of stars in the sky . But he also compares the desired number with grains of sand in Libya, home to Cyrene, where the silphium plant was produced.

"As many as the grains of Libyan sand
that lie between hot Jupiter’s oracle,
at Ammon, in resin-producing Cyrene"

In other words, we can make love as often as we like as long as we have silphium!

[Divia]

I did hear the lemon thing before!

[LCW]

I've read about the lemon tricks in several novels. I think though that would be a little "ouch", wouldn't it??

[Divia]

Yeah I cant be thinkin that is good. Oh I also remember in TOBG they shoved rags up there, but that was cause she was well had Mr. Monthly.

[Christine Blevins]

I wanted to show a wide range of experience for the main character in my story MIDWIFE OF THE BLUE RIDGE - more than just delivering babies - and I specifically wanted to show how women desperate to control their reproductive lives reached out to women wise in herbal knowledge.

After doing a lot of research on herbal birth control, I decided to use wild carrot seed (Queen Anne's lace seed) since it was a plant readily available in the geographic area of the story, and had been in use as a birth control method for hundreds years - actually, women still use it to this day. It is more of a "morning after" pill. The progesterone in the seed prevents a fertilized egg from adhering to the lining of the uterus.

A little excerpt where Maggie describes how to use it:

Bess folded Maggie’s fingers over the dollar. “Wild carrot–d’you have any?”

Maggie met Bess’s eye with a curt nod and slipped the silver into her pocket. She dug through her basket and produced a bulging sack the size of her fist.


With a furtive glance over her shoulder, Bess snatched the sack and stuffed it into her pocket. Maggie laid a hand on the woman’s forearm and whispered, “Chew it well afore ye swallow, aye? A generous spoonful–no more’n a day after ye correspond with a man.”