From Crocodile Dung to the NuvaRing, Birth Control Is Nothing New

Unsurprisingly, human beings have used and experimented with various methods of birth and fertility control since the beginning of recorded history. Furthermore, birth control's status as taboo, acceptable or somewhere in between the two has varied over time and across cultures. The history of fertility control reveals that it's a practice common to almost all times and places -- and dispels the myth that birth control is a selfish demand of the modern woman.

Although the sperm cell, egg and the intricate mechanics of reproduction would not be discovered until the advent of tools like the microscope, it is clear that the concept of preventing the exchange of fluids was understood and used by many ancient communities.  

According to a curriculum guide by Kathleen London at the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute called "The History of Birth Control" (and according to common sense, too) the most common pre-medical form of birth control was coitus interruptus, or "pulling out," which was frowned upon by Jewish and Catholic authorities but still used. Coitus obstructus, which involved applying pressure to block the release of semen, was advocated by some ancient Sanskrit texts.

But as we know today, these methods have high failure rates, and just as today we have come up with the pill, the patch, the ring, and multiple barrier methods, it appears that our ancestors got quite creative in their efforts to plan their families.  

Pessaries and Cervical Caps

Perhaps the most intriguing, bizarre and possibly effective methods for birth control were pessaries. In London's words:  

A pessary is a vaginal suppository used to kill sperm and/or block their passage through the cervix. The pessary was the most effective contraceptive device used in ancient times and numerous recipes for pessaries from ancient times are known. Ingredients for pessaries included: a base of crocodile dung (dung was frequently a base), a mixture of honey and natural sodium carbonate forming a kind of gum. All were of a consistency which would melt at body temperature and form an impenetrable covering of the cervix.  

The crocodile dung pessary, in case you were wondering, was a specialty of the ancient Egyptians who also used various mixtures of honey, acacia, dates, carob and cotton as pessaries. In India, incidentally, the preferred form of dung was that of the elephant. Another method used in India was salt soaked in oil. Why these specific materials, you ask? Not only were the consistencies right for creating a barrier, but some of these materials such as dung had spermicidal properties. 

Giovanni Giacomo Casanova, of endless fame for his romantic prowess, encouraged his (many) lovers to use squeezed lemon wedges as barriers, while rudimentary medical versions of the cervical cap, from fitted rubber implements to sponges, were used in England and America in the 19th century.  

Amulets and Magic Spells

Of course, there were also less successful and logical methods. A paper on the history of birth control at the Planned Parenthood website (Jon Knowles is the primary author) points out that in medieval Europe, superstition was often substituted for even the rudimentary science.  

During the Middle Ages in Europe, magicians advised women to wear the testicles of a weasel on their thighs or hang its amputated foot from around their necks (Lieberman, 1973). Other amulets of the time were wreaths of herbs, desiccated cat livers or shards of bones from cats (but only the pure black ones), flax lint tied in a cloth and soaked in menstrual blood, or the anus of a hare. It was also believed that a woman could avoid pregnancy by walking three times around the spot where a pregnant wolf had urinated.  

And beyond the spells and patients, one of the cruder ways communities controlled population was infanticide, often by exposure. This practice, often aimed at girls, was so widespread that it remains a common trope in folktales, fairytales, and ancient literature from around the world.  

The Rhythm Method

According to the Planned Parenthood paper, "Africans and Native American women of the 17th and 18th centuries were among the first to actually understand their fertility cycles well enough to plan their families." Women in these societies caught onto the idea that keeping track of their cervical mucus was one way of understanding how fertile they were at a given time, enabling them to decide whether or not to abstain. In the western world, it wasn't until 50 years ago that cervical mucus monitoring was backed up by science. In combination with body temperature and calendar, it was integrated into the the "sympto-thermal" method of birth control.  

As for reliance on the calendar alone, many societies have attempted some variation on "the rhythm method" but it rarely worked. Science did not verify the proper (but still fallible) way to use this method until the last century.  

The Almighty Condom  

From French cave paintings to Egyptian art, images of condoms abound in ancient, even prehistoric times, although whether they were used for contraceptive purposes is unknown.  

The oldest archaeological condom to be discovered, was made of lambskin and dated from the 17th century in Scotland. Historians posit it was used to prevent STDs during the English civil wars.  

In more Casanova facts, the famous lothario professed to using condoms made of linen. Meanwhile, the rubber condom became widely available in the 19th century when rubber was mass produced by - yep, the Goodyear clan.  

However, it was still considered "immoral" to distribute condoms to American WWI soldiers, and only in WWII did the army deem that the health benefits of condoms outweighed the risks.  

Taboo or Must Do?  

This is just a brief overview of the different kinds of contraceptives used over time. But it's clear from their mention in several authoritative texts and widespread use in ancient societies from India to Egypt to Europe that contraception was not always forbidden; in fact it was often seen as necessary. Western religious authorities have frowned on the practice as contraception appears to run counter to biblical directives about being fruitful and multiplying - but apparently people have been disobeying those authorities since the beginning, too.  

Kathleen London writes that one of the reasons abortion and birth control went from accepted folk-remedies to taboo in the US coincided with the transfer of medical care from women nurses, midwifes, and relatives to mostly-male doctors who were more apt to disapprove of female sexuality. Population needs have also had a strong influence on the "morality" of abortion and birth control-during flush times; birth control has been discouraged when the demand for labor needs and soldiers for armies is at its height. In times when survival was dicier, it may have been less of a problem to limit childbearing. Today, as this site attests to, we're still engaged in a fight for recognition of the ethical and health benefits of wide access to contraception.  

For More Information

The above information were gleaned from the following sources, which are just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring the history of birth control.  Besides the methods listed above you can learn about the history of abortifacents, douching, menstrual taboos and other traditions around the world. And if you're in Cleveland, be sure to visit the hall of contraception at Case Western Reserve University.  

You can view:

Yale parenting class curriculum on history of birth control, abortion and more

Planned Parenthood's incredibly rich history of birth control in America and around the globe

Audio lecture on birth control in America

Article about the opening of museum of contraception  

Interview with curator of museum of contraception