Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/197

Also a great many varieties in current use are shown me from time to time by medical men and others. There seem no end to the shapes, forms and materials of such devices. From simple studs, not unlike a collar stud, to a complicated fluted metal instrument almost as large as a cigar, almost every range of variety and shape that could be imagined seems to have been fashioned by one person or another, and used successfully by women in some part of the world.

In general I think any simple stud or contrivance calculated merely to fill the lumen of the cervical canal, is theoretically unsound and probably detrimental in practice. Nevertheless, I know such simple studs are advised by some medical men, and used successfully, but in general I feel they are probably not very safe as contraceptives. For slightly "frigid" women they may be quite successful, but I cannot imagine them succeeding with a woman sufficiently strongly sexed for the natural opening and aspiration of the os during coitus. The smooth-stalked stud or button would simply drop out and be useless. The plugging of the cervical canal and consequent closing of the exit for any extruded secretion is also not to be recommended, and is a very different thing indeed from the