Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/154

apart from the association of similar appliances in connection with the prevention of venereal disease. Nevertheless, owing to the ravaging prevalence of venereal disease the practitioner is often confronted with cases in which it is most valuable to be able to recommend procedure which will tend to operate both so as to prevent pregnancy and to reduce somewhat the risk of infection. (The condom, of course, does no more than reduce somewhat the risk of infection.)

In cases of uncontaminated persons, for other reasons its use is sometimes imperative. When it is a matter of life and death for the wife that no conception should take place, it is advisable for the man to use the condom in addition to any preventives used by the wife, because even with the greatest care there is always a slight risk of failure, in any one method, and when both parties take different methods of precaution the risk is reduced to a negligible minimum.

Much hindrance to progress in contraceptive knowledge has resulted from those advocates of control who ignore or deny the undoubted fact that there is truth in the contention of the clerical and "purity" schools of thought that "contraceptives are harmful"; for the condom is the contra-