History of contraception
Contraception has a long history, because people always wanted to rule this constituent of their life: to have as many children in the family as they wanted and to avoid abortions.
Ancient Egyptian women put crocodile dung and sponges soaked with honey into vagina for pregnancy prevention. Indians used douching with lemon juice.
Even poppy was used as a contraceptive. Some contraceptives that were invented long time ago are used even today.
There was a foretype of the modern condom in antiquity. Ancient Romans made it of animals guts. But cristianity considered contraception to be a sin. So, condom had been forgotten till the 16th century. Then it was recommended by an Italian doctor as an effective syphilis epydemy precaution. The doctor recommended to put pouch on the penis a medicated canvas. This invention had been used for a long time first of all as a mean protecting from sexually transmited diseases and secondly for pregnancy prevention.Since the end of the 19th century condom has been made of thin rubber. Modern condoms are made of thin but firm latex. They are not only contraceptives, but also a mean of getting pleasure as they differ in shape, taste and smell.
Cervical cap has been used for quite a long since. For the first time they were mentioned in the 17th century, in writings by Casanova. People used a piece of lemon for this purpose. Modern caps are made of various materials: metal, rubber or plastic. They also differ in shape.
There was something like modern intrauterine devices 3 thousand years ago. People put a little stone or a bird bone into the uter in order to prevent unwanted pregnancy. These devices often caused various kinds of inflammation. In 1929 a German doctor purposed to use ring surrounded with nickel-cooper-zink alloy as an intrauterine contraceptive.Intrauterine methods of contraception had not been popular till the end of the fifties of the previous century. Then about 50 kinds of intrauterine contraceptives were invented.
Nowadays intrauterine contraceptives containing cooper are usually used.
Did ancient people use any foretypes of modern birth control pills?
Thousands years ago various herb medicines were used as contraceptives. Ancient Chinese women drank different kinds of tea or ate dried beavers eggs soaked in alcohol. Carrot seeds were used as a contraceptive 100 years ago in India.
At the end of the 19-th century scientists found out that an extract from ovaries causes a contraceptive effect. First birth control pills contained a vast amount of hormones and often caused rather unplesant and even harmful side effects. Thanks to minute scientists, labour doses of hormons in modern hormonal contraceptives decreased and their effectiveness dramatically increased. Nowadays there are various kinds of hormonal contraceptives besides pills. They are plasters, injections and other kinds of hormonal methods of contraception that have a long lasting effect and do not require every day use.
Today hormonal contraception is not only one of the most popular, reliable and effective methods of unwanted pregnancy prevention. Scientists have proved that it influences female organism positively (for example, protects women from cancer).
You can see that modern people have a great variety of contraceptives in their disposal. It means that every couple can choose a method of contraception, suitable exactly for them. Abortion is unforgivable in such conditions, isnt it?