- If you're not big on lemon halves shoved up the vag,
you could move on to trying something
a little more medicinial.
Is that a word?
Is medicinial a word?
I don't even know if that's a word.
From swaddling shafts with animal intestines
to cramming crocodile dung
into places it definitely does not belong,
humans throughout history have been willing to try
almost anything to have sex without making babies.
I'm Mama Doctor Jones, and today we're going through
some of the creative but horrifying ways
our ancestors have come up with
for doing the deed with a lower chance to breed.
First up, we have ancient condoms.
Long before the advent of the modern condom,
which is typically made polyurethane or latex,
people in the past were wrapping and packing their goods
with barriers made of all sorts of materials.
Interestingly, as early as 3000 BC King Minos of Crete
is noted as saying that he used the bladder of a goat
to protect his wife from the
serpents and scorpions of his semen.
But until much later in history, only the elite had access
to such luxurious manner of barrier contraception.
Everyone else was relegated to using fabric,
like silk or linen, to wrap the penis or even
making makeshift internal condoms out of plants and leaves.
Honestly, these sound like just about
the worst way to have sex that I can imagine.
And I think given the mortality rates
of pregnancy at the time,
I probably would have just preferred to die alone
having never experienced such pleasure.
In fact, they even figured out
that these condoms were actually relatively effective
at preventing syphilis,
which was a really common cause of soldier fatality
around that time.
And at the time, in the mid 1600s,
there was an English civil war going on.
So the government actually dispatched
a whole bunch of condoms made of cattle and lamb
and fish bladders and intestines
to the military for the soldiers to decrease their chances
of dying from their extracurricular activities
because they needed them to fight the war.
Diaphragms are inserted into the vagina
and they're meant to create a barrier or a block
so the sperm can't gain access to the cervix
to get into the uterus into the fallopian tubes.
And in modern times,
they're typically made of silicone or latex,
but back in the days of scorpion sperm,
they were much more creative with their materials.
So we have historical accounts of using anything from
lemon halves, which honestly sounds terrible,
to algae and seaweed or even sea sponges to make diaphragms.
But personally, my favorite,
and the one honestly if I was alive back in these days,
I would choose to use,
were cups that were crafted out of opium.
And yeah, you can absorb that through the vaginal wall,
so I would assume there was, you know,
something interesting about using those as well.
Eventually, German gynecologist Friedrich Wilde
invented a rubber pessary
that paved the way to the modern diaphragm.
And in the 1850s it was introduced to the United States
by no other than Charles Goodyear.
Yep, the tire guy.
But if you're not big on lodging lemons up there
and the side effects of opium cups
sound a little intimidating,
you could always move on to trying some medicinal plants.
Silphium is a historical plant
that seems to be related to fennel,
and it was used in ancient Greece for everything
from aphrodisiacs and medication to seasoning and perfume.
It was so well loved at the time,
in fact, that it was printed onto the currency of Cyrene
which is probably the only place that it actually grew.
And the Greeks used it so much
that they seem to have harvested it right into extinction.
According to Greek physician Soranus of Ephesus,
you could actually prevent pregnancy
or even destroy an existing pregnancy
with just a single monthly dose in a chickpeas size amount
of silphium pods.
It was so important to them at that time
that Julius Caesar actually had a cache of silphium pods
which is 1500 pounds stored away in the government treasury.
Unfortunately, with the seeming extinction of silphium pods,
we're being forced to move on to a bit more
accessible option called Queen Anne's lace.
Queen Anne's lace is a flowering plant
and Hippocrates of often misquoted do no harm fame,
was quite the fan.
He stated that this could work as both an abortifacient
and a contraceptive.
And modern research does show that the seeds of this plant
may have some effect
at blocking progesterone production.
So he may have been onto something.
But what if Queen Anne's lace isn't your thing,
silphium pods are now extinct,
and a vaginal lemon vinaigrette just sounds a bit unsavory?
Well, I have excellent news for you
because now we're moving on to crocodile poop.
In the 1500 BC era, ancient Egyptians we're using a mixture
of crocodile dung, sodium bicarbonate,
which was extracted from the ashes of burned plants,
and honey into a ball that was a very thick,
almost solid paste
which was inserted into the vagina prior to intercourse.
Sounds exciting.
If none of the above options appeal to you,
you could always try holding your breath during sex
and then vigorously sneezing the sperm
right out of your uterus as Soranus had recommended.
Although he also thought you could only get pregnant
during menstruation,
so I'm not sure how reliable that advice will be.
Or you could go with the 10th century Persian manner
of jumping backwards, seven or nine, exactly seven or nine,
those were the magic numbers, times after intercourse
or even give a shot with tying a pair of weasel testicles
to your thigh before you have sex.
Let me know in the comments down below
which method of contraception you decide to give a try.
For legal reasons that is a joke.
Please do not use any of these
as your actual manner of contraception.
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and I'll see you next Monday.