History of Contraceptive Methods (Part I)

Having a baby is the most frequent reason why people make sex, but as far as thousands of years, men and women have wanted to decide when and whether to have a baby. Long before any condoms came on the market... people around the world try many contraceptive methods, some of them with hight risk, some of them without any effects and must of all hilarious. Family planning has been always practiced is societies dominated by religious codes.

Centuries ago Chinese women drank mercury to control fertility, fact that resulted in sterility and even death. Somewhere in Europe some magicians, recommend some amulets that every woman should wear it, if she doesn't want a baby. The amulets was made up by weasel testicles or weasel leg and women had to wared around the neck during sex. Some other amulets has been made up by desiccated cat liver, bones, menstrual blood or rabbit anus.

During middle ages it was also believed that a woman can avoid pregnancy by walking around the spot that a pregnant wolf had urinated ( 3 times per day). More recent some women from Canada drink some potion made up from dried beaver testicles brewed in alcohol. In 90's, teens in Australia have used candy bars wrappers as condoms.

One “safe and effective” solution has been available to women from 1916 in America that finally and completely rolled back state and local laws that had outlawed the use of contraception by married couples.

Many peoples tried to understand the women fertility and human reproduction since first families were formed. Thousand of years people doesn't know what sex had to do with pregnancy. Scientists identify the role of the sperm somewhere in 1600 and timing of ovulation has been a mystery until 1930.

In ancient India vaginal intercourse was encouraged during menstruation because it was believed that menstrual blood was women’s semen.
Condoms appear for the first time in some illustration found in Egypt and it is more than 3.000 years old. The oldest condom were found in the foundations of Dudley Castle in England. They were made of animal gut and dated back to 1640.

Throughout history women have used various substances to block the way to the uterus and absorb semen. Vegetable seedpods were used in South Africa, plugs of grass and crushed roots were used in other parts of Africa, wads of seaweed, moss, and bamboo were used in Japan, China, and the South Seas Islands, and empty halves of pomegranates were used in ancient Greece.

One book for contraception that was written by a man who become pope, make us to believed that women in antiquity had more control over their reproduction than previously believed. Hundreds of generation from Africa, Asia and America use various fruits and plants to avoid pregnancy.