Friday, October 14, 2005

The Weird History of Contraception

Filed under: the good old days...

For this week's 'the good old days', we go to The St. Petersburg Times and the AP story about Percy Skuy, the former president of Ortho-Macneill, who has donated his 700+ item collection of historical contraceptives to the Dittrick Medical History Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The center is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University. From the article:

Sponges and contraceptive foams were used in ancient Egypt, but as a contraceptive foam women were encouraged to use honey and crocodile dung as a spermicide. Aristotle suggesting layering the vagina with oil of cedar. Some sponges were soaked in lemon juice, something that actually worked because lemon is a mild spermicide.

More about the collection...

Online exhibits at the Dittrick Museum of Medical History...

(hat tip: BoingBoing)

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