Surveying one of the oldest and most urgent problems of mankind, contraception, this book tells of how, over the centuries, men and women have battled with the needs both for sexual gratification and for limitation of offspring, and also focuses on how contraception might evolve in the future.
"Both an exhaustive survey of many cultures over a period of three thousand years, and a thoughtful application of sociological discipline to the history of medicine, Medical History of Contraception is a fascinating introduction to the era of Humanae Vitae. 'Men and women have always longed for both fertility and sterility, each at its appointed time and in its chosen circumstance,' the author declares, and his book, first published in 1936, is a masterful collation of historical and anthropological evidence, from pre-literature Trobianders to semi-literate London. The bibliography of 1500 items, covering publications up to the mid-1930's, is a unique contribution to scholarship."--Publisher's description.
The authors analyze the tortuous course that Puerto Rico has followed in evolving a population policy, highlighting the island's rapic economic growth, its role as a laboratory for testing different methods of birth control, and the inevitable conflicts between church and state. The strands of colonialism, catholicism, and contraception are woven into a background of profound social change, characterized by shifting values, industrialization, mass emigration, and technical innovation. Originally published 1983. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
The sheath first used during a sexual act can be seen on a cave fresco in the Dordogne, dated 10-15000 BC. Emma Dickens traces the use of all kinds of contraceptive devices, from earliest times to the highly sophisticated methods available today.
This text traces the history of contraception and abortifacients from ancient Egypt to the 17th century, and discusses the scientific merit of the ancient remedies and why this knowledge about fertility control was gradually lost over the course of the Middle Ages.
In Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, John Riddle showed, through extraordinary scholarly sleuthing, that women from ancient Egyptian times to the fifteenth century had relied on an extensive pharmacopoeia of herbal abortifacients and contraceptives to regulate fertility. In Eve's Herbs, Riddle explores a new question: If women once had access to effective means of birth control, why was this knowledge lost to them in modern times? Beginning with the testimony of a young woman brought before the Inquisition in France in 1320, Riddle asks what women knew about regulating fertility with herbs and shows how the new intellectual, religious, and legal climate of the early modern period tended to cast suspicion on women who employed "secret knowledge" to terminate or prevent pregnancy. Knowledge of the menstrual-regulating qualities of rue, pennyroyal, and other herbs was widespread through succeeding centuries among herbalists, apothecaries, doctors, and laywomen themselves, even as theologians and legal scholars began advancing the idea that the fetus was fully human from the moment of conception. Drawing on previously unavailable material, Riddle reaches a startling conclusion: while it did not persist in a form that was available to most women, ancient knowledge about herbs was not lost in modern times but survived in coded form. Persecuted as "witchcraft" in centuries past and prosecuted as a crime in our own time, the control of fertility by "Eve's herbs" has been practiced by Western women since ancient times.
From the 1873 Comstock Act to the groundbreaking inventions of today, a history of contraceptives reveals how they evolved from an illicit trade located in secret places and pornography outlets to one of the most legitimate businesses in America.
This narrative history of one of the most far-reaching social movements in the 20th century shows how it defied the law and made the use of contraception an acceptable social practice—and a necessary component of modern healthcare. * 15 photographs and images of the major players in the movement and of key publications and contraceptive devices * A selected bibliography and extensive end notes, providing an up-to-date source for primary and secondary material on the birth control movement
