Today we have the pill, the implant, the IUD and the morning-after pill. The arrival of the pill in the 1960s changed sex forever: for the first time, women could reliably decide for themselves whether and when to have children.
But people were trying to avoid pregnancy long before modern medicine, for social, economic and very personal reasons. Abstinence always worked best, but it was rarely the popular choice. The result is a long history of inventive, disgusting and sometimes deadly experiments. These are ten of the strangest.
10. Lemons
Lemons were once more than a kitchen staple. Women soaked sponges in lemon juice and inserted them before sex, hoping the acid would kill sperm while the sponge acted as a barrier.
The famous seducer Casanova went a step further. In his memoirs he describes using half a squeezed lemon as a kind of early cervical cap. Citric acid does have some spermicidal effect, but the method was far from reliable and stung badly. In practice, luck still did most of the work.
9. Gold and silver caps
Long before rubber diaphragms, people experimented with rigid caps placed over the cervix. Some of the more luxurious versions were made of gold or silver, metals chosen partly because they do not rust.
They were expensive, uncomfortable and not particularly effective. A hard metal cap could shift during sex and lose its function, and leaving it in place for long periods carried a real risk of irritation and infection.
8. The Coca-Cola douche
Bizarre ideas did not stop in the Middle Ages. In the 1950s and 1960s, a persistent myth spread among teenagers that rinsing with Coca-Cola after sex would prevent pregnancy. A shaken bottle made a handy improvised douche.
In 1985, researchers actually tested it in the lab and found that Coke did kill sperm, with Diet Coke working best. A Taiwanese team later found the opposite. Both studies shared the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In real life, the method is useless anyway: sperm reach the cervix within minutes, long before anyone can grab a bottle.
7. Acacia, honey and cotton
An ancient Egyptian medical text, the Ebers Papyrus, describes a pessary made of lint soaked in a paste of acacia and honey. It sounds primitive, but there was some logic behind it: fermented acacia produces lactic acid, a substance later used in spermicidal jellies.
Centuries later, enslaved women in the American South chewed the root bark of the cotton plant to prevent or end pregnancies. Modern research shows that gossypol, a compound in cotton, can affect fertility, but it is also toxic, and the method came at a serious cost to women’s health.
6. Animal intestines
The forerunners of today’s condoms were made from animal guts. Intestines of sheep, pigs or cattle were cleaned, treated and shaped into sheaths, often tied on with a ribbon.
Unlike many methods on this list, these actually worked reasonably well against pregnancy. The downsides: they were expensive, they were often reused, and they offered little protection against sexually transmitted infections. It was not until vulcanized rubber arrived in the 19th century that condoms became cheap and widely available. Lambskin condoms, as it happens, are still sold today.
5. Queen Anne’s lace
As far back as ancient Greece, the seeds of wild carrot, also known as Queen Anne’s lace, were taken after sex as a kind of early morning-after pill. Hippocrates mentioned it, and some women in rural areas still use it today.
There is limited evidence that the seeds may interfere with implantation, but the method is risky. Wild carrot looks a lot like poison hemlock, one of the deadliest plants in Europe, and mixing them up could be fatal.
4. Weasel testicles
In medieval Europe, medicine and superstition were never far apart. One of the strangest beliefs of the time was that a weasel’s testicles could prevent pregnancy, as long as a woman wore them as an amulet around her thigh during sex.
Some versions of the advice suggested other parts of the animal or grinding things into a drink. There was, of course, no biological basis for any of it. It was pure magical thinking at a time when the workings of the human body were still a mystery.
3. Blacksmith’s water
Ancient Greek and Roman sources mention women drinking the water blacksmiths used to cool their hot metal, in the belief that it would stop them from conceiving.
Whatever effect it had probably came from the metal residues in the water, which slowly poisoned the drinker. Poison as contraception has a long history: in Victorian England, working-class women took lead-based pills to end pregnancies, at the risk of serious illness and death.
2. Crocodile dung
The ancient Egyptians gave us the pyramids, but their ideas about contraception were less refined. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus, from around 1850 BC, recommends inserting a paste of crocodile dung, sometimes mixed with honey or sour milk, as a pessary.
It may have worked slightly as a physical barrier, and some historians think it may have changed the acidity enough to slow sperm down. The risk of serious infection, however, was enormous, and it is fair to wonder how the romance survived the smell.
1. Mercury
The most dangerous method on the list. According to historical accounts, women in ancient China were advised to drink mercury, sometimes mixed with lead, to avoid pregnancy. At the time, mercury was seen as a powerful medicine for all sorts of ailments.
We now know it is one of the most toxic substances there is. It may well have caused infertility, but only by damaging organs and the nervous system, often with fatal results. It is a grim reminder of how much women were once willing to risk to avoid an unwanted pregnancy.
