Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/141

one of the oldest of spermaticides; and in the second it has accessory virtues which are particularly valuable for women who have become too much stretched and relaxed through childbirth. Alum has the secondary quality of contracting the mucous membrane of the vagina, which in some cases is of value in restoring perfect sex relations. Where the vaginal canal has been unduly stretched by childbirth the natural reactions of the coital act are sometimes thereby so much interfered with that the husband ceases to feel satisfaction from coitus with his wife. Alum, having a contracting effect, tends to restore the canal to its antepartum condition, and I have even been told in the East that it is possible to restore it to approximately the virginal state.

It must be used with discrimination for it would tend, of course, to have an excessive hardening effect if used too frequently. I do not know of any English woman who uses it as a spermaticide in this powdered form. Whether this is because the public does not know of its possible use, or from experience of any detrimental effects, I cannot yet ascertain; but I should judge that it is chiefly through ignorance of its efficacy and subsidiary value. In the form of an aqueous douche it is, of course, often