This next museum makes me want to listen to Loretta Lynn’s The Pill. The Dittrick Medical History Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio has America’s only birth control museum. Opened since 2005, the museum exhibit has 650 artifacts–ranging from beaver-testicle tea believed to prevent pregnancy to sheep intestine condoms. Besides the expected metal and plastic swirls, squiggles, loops and bows that have formed various intrauterine devices, there’s also cat bones, mule ear wax, spider carcasses, deer skins, Mexican yams, formaldehyde powder, Goodyear Tire rubbers, rhythm beads, seed wool, dates, honey and sponges; all displayed in chronological order. The control of fertility sometimes involved rather dangerous methods like douching with Lysol or drinking poisonous herbs like pennyroyal tea (hey there, Kurt Cobain!). The famous Casanova recommended inserting a half-lemon as a cervix cover, while in Ancient Eygpt they would grind dates, acacia, and honey to coat the vulva. Anyone notice…that’s a lot of food?
Whatever your political opinion might be on this issue, from the tiny pills in circle packaging that we use today to the crocodile dung used as spermicide in 2000 BCE, various forms of contraception have always existed throughout history…so why take that away?
