The History of Birth Control

Following on from last month’s post about menstruation and period products, let’s look at the history of birth control.

Before I start, I must warn you I cover abortion.

First, I’ve used the term ‘birth control’, which is the modern umbrella term, but this post will cover both contraceptives as methods to prevent conception, and abortifacients as methods to terminate a pregnancy.

Religious beliefs and social factors have always (and continue to) played a large part in the provision or prohibition of contraceptives and abortifacients.

I made so many notes while researching this topic, but I can’t fit every detail in here. If you want to delve deeper, check out the sources listed at the end of the post. Also note that I only briefly mention condoms. For more information about prophylactics, check out my post about the history of condoms.

A brief history of contraceptives

Yay! It’s time for a timeline. This includes scientific discoveries that helped to improve understanding of conception and create methods to prevent it.

I know I’ve said it before, but as long as humans have been having sex, they’ve been trying to come up with ways to prevent pregnancy.

Ancient World

Chinese women in the Ancient World drank liquid mercury as a contraceptive. Obviously, the poison had terrible side effects including sterility, kidney failure, brain damage and death.
The Egyptians tried pessaries using lint soaked in honey or acacia gum.
In the Book of Genesis, men are called upon to practice coitus interruptus, AKA the withdrawal method.
4^th century BCE – Aristotle proposed using natural chemicals such as cedar oil, lead ointment (ahem, poisonous) or frankincense as spermicides.
1^st century CE – Roman natural history writer, Pliny, advocated abstinence to avoid pregnancy. Good luck with that, Pliny. The Romans also tried using goat bladders like a female sheath or internal condom.
In the second century CE, a Greek ‘gynaecologist’ advised to drink the water that blacksmiths used to quench their metal. This obviously led to metal poisoning.

History of birth control — An acacia tree in Africa. Image by Michelle Raponi from Pixabay

Middle Ages

Men were believed to be the creators of life (ahem) because they produced ejaculate. If a man’s ‘seed’ was released inside a woman, then a pregnancy could occur. A woman was merely the vessel in which a man’s offspring was carried. This belief was still upheld in the mid-1800s.

I should also note that the use of chastity belts at this time is untrue. Evidence of their first use comes from the 16^th century. They were more widely used by the Victorians as an antirape device. During the Industrial Revolution, women entered the workforce in huge numbers. If a woman was not in the home, then of course she was clearly dissolute (cue eye roll). To avoid assault and rape, women took to wearing iron underwear as protection. Anyway, I digress.

Renaissance

The discovery of spermatozoa in the 17^th century only strengthened the idea that men were the creators of life.

18^th Century

Animal gut condoms really took off, but other barrier methods like sponges and the rind of half a lemon were also used. Douching, or rinsing out, the vagina following intercourse was also introduced and remained popular for the next century.

19^th Century

1827 – scientists discovered the existence of the female egg – the ovum.
1838 – a German doctor patented a form of cervical cap.
1839 – the invention of vulcanised rubber improved the effectiveness of condoms but also led to the invention of douching syringes and womb veils.
1843 – scientists learned that conception occurs in human reproduction when the sperm enters the ovum.
In 1880, Dr Wilhelm Mensinga invented a larger rubber cervical cap known as the diaphragm.
1890 – Emil Knauer discovered chemicals in the human body controlled metabolic processes. In 1905, they were named ‘hormones’ from the Greek word hormad, which means ‘sir up or incite’.

20^th Century

From the early 1900s, sterilisation was used for eugenic reasons, but vasectomies and the sealing of the fallopian tubes are a popular choice in the UK nowadays.
1920s – Scientists discovered women are fertile approximately halfway through the menstrual cycle and concluded that avoiding sex during that time can prevent a pregnancy, now known as the rhythm method.
In 1954, the pill was invented as an oral, synthetic progesterone. For decades, this was the most popular form of birth control.

21^st Century

We now have so many choices of hormone-based contraceptives, from pills to injections. Intrauterine devices also use hormones or copper to prevent fertilisation and implantation of the ovum.

18^th century birth control

So, let’s look closer at the methods of birth control that were available during the Georgian era.

There was no way the Georgians would ever abstain from sex, but they knew that some sexual activities didn’t result in pregnancy.

Working around it

Frottage or frotting – yes, this is a popular term amongst the modern gay community, but non-penetrative or mutual masturbation was popular in the past, mainly because a woman’s virginity remained intact.

Coitus interruptus – it was still the most widely practiced, even though the risk of pregnancy was high. We now know that is because of the presence of sperm in pre-ejaculate. This method also requires trust and self-control.

Oral sex – oral sex isn’t mentioned much in literature of the time, including in Grosse’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811). Oral sex was seen as something French. As I mentioned in my post about napkins, British attitudes to all things French fluctuated depending on whether the two countries were at war. However, licking and using mouths are certainly listed as services provided by the women in Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies published between the 1760s and the 1790s.

Anal sex – this is also less frequently mentioned in literature of the time between heterosexual couples. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Because of religious teachings about anal sex, it was considered taboo, and likely not discussed openly. Harris’s Ladies also offered this service—if customers paid extra, of course.

Contraceptives

Let’s be clear, all the below were rudimentary and all offered limited protection.

Breast feeding – for centuries, people knew when a woman was breastfeeding, she was less likely to become pregnant. We now know that breast feeding suppresses progesterone and ovulation when regularly feeding over 24 hours.

Cervical caps – Casanova wrote about using half a lemon rind as a physical barrier around the cervix. Acidic lemon juice may have had some effect as a spermicide. I’m not convinced lemon halves provided an effective seal, and I bet they stung more than a bit.

Sponges – seas sponges placed against the cervix and attached to a long ribbon were widely used. Apothecaries recommended soaking the sponge in vinegar or lemon juice as a spermicide. Jewish women recorded that using a sea sponge wrapped in silk was quite effective.

Condoms – again, read my post, but animal gut condoms were a tube which was sealed at one end. What they were sealed with is unclear – was it glue or stitching? We know sperm can get through a hole created by a thin needle, and I suspect that reusable animal gut condoms, even if sealed with glue, meant their effectiveness was limited and would diminish with time.

Douching – flushing out the vaginal or anal cavity had been done for centuries. But douching as a means of birth control really took off in the late 18^th century. What was mixed with the warm water, such as copper salt and mercury, may have killed the sperm, but also caused inflammation, cervical cancer, infertility and thrush.

Abortion

Until 1803, abortion was legal in Britain, although a post-quickening (the first sign of foetal movement) termination was considered deeply immoral. The terms miscarriage and abortion were used interchangeably, and neither necessarily meant the deliberate termination of a pregnancy.

In the 18^th century, the means to terminate a pregnancy were available from the local apothecary. These methods were as dangerous to the mother as they were to the foetus.

Herbal methods – these were violent purgatives to force a miscarriage.

Savin, a species of juniper which is also used to flavour gin, pennyroyal, rue and ergot could be taken in a hot-water infusion like tea. However, savin and pennyroyal are toxic in high doses and could kill the mother as well as terminate the pregnancy.

If pennyroyal didn’t kill the mother, it could also poison the lungs and nervous system, cause liver and kidney failure and inflame the stomach lining. Aloes, turpentine, laurel, madder, pepper and sage were also used.

Desperate women also tried scalding baths, drinking large quantities of gin, falling down the stairs and being forcibly punched in the stomach to end their pregnancies with varying degrees of success.

If all else failed, women were left with surgical intervention. Whether via self-treatment or visiting someone who provided this service (often midwives), instruments were used to end a pregnancy. These could also cause internal damage, bleeding and death, infection and death, or permanent damage to the vagina, cervix, womb and ovaries, and, hence, infertility.

New laws

The Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act of 1803 also included legislation making it an offence to perform or cause an abortion after the quickening under the penalty of death. It also made it illegal to abort a pre-quickening foetus. This was defined as a misdemeanour and was punishable by a fine, imprisonment, whipping and 14 years’ transportation.

This meant popping to the apothecary to get a sachet of pennyroyal tea was more difficult. Apothecaries and midwives were no longer willing to risk their neck by offering abortifacients.

However, this did not mean they stopped selling items to help women with ‘female problems’ or providing what became known as back-street abortions. Instead, apothecaries provided under-the-counter services and used inventive language for products that regulated menstruation and remedies to ‘bring down the flowers’. Both under-the-counter abortifacients and illegal abortion services could be found in Britain well into the 1970s.