Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/190

still more serious one: the metal band which forms the spring of the cap, as used by Malthusians, is not welded but is bound by rusting wire with rough cut ends. At our Clinic we had a few of these caps for use in special cases where the occlusive Pro Race cannot be used. There I soon noted rough projections under the rubber, which I cut open and found these raw wire ends under a very thin skin of rubber. If by chance they should be used by one of the types of women whose vaginal secretions are injurious to rubber, and she left it in too long—say a week or more—it obviously would be most likely that the thin skin of rubber over the rough wire would be broken, and the raw end of the common wire might well cause lacerations either in the vaginal surfaces or the glans penis of the husband. Here, it appears, may be that scrap of truth behind the mis-statement so often put into circulation by opponents of the movement for contraceptive knowledge, that "occlusive caps cause lacerations." The Pro Race occlusive cap (see p. 140) does not and cannot cause lacerations because it is an entirely soft, all-rubber article; yet this Dutch cap is sometimes mistakenly called an "occlusive," and as there may have been lacerations from the