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CONTRACEPTION

answered by the fact that simultaneously with the publication of his attack on me in the Lancet, the British Medical Journal published a letter from a medical practitioner not merely advocating its use, but its compulsory use! This doctor went farther than I should do at present, and said:[1] "In cases unable to maintain themselves or their children the woman should be temporarily sterilized by compulsion for varying periods—for example, by the insertion of the spring wish-bone pessary." On other points also I replied to Mr. Haire in the Lancet.[2] My knowledge of this type of spring is chiefly at first hand, from personal discussions, but recently I received a letter from an important American doctor who wrote: "You are quite right in believing that I have myself used it in suitable cases quite extensively for a number of years. It has proved in every instance quite effective."

When in America I met one of the New York Gynæcologists who himself was so confident of the method as a reliable contraceptive that he placed it first among all

  1. ↑ R. H. Vercoe (1922), letter in Brit. Med. Journ., No. 3216, August 19, 1922, p. 327.
  2. ↑ M. C. Stopes (1922), letter in Lancet, No. 5166, September 2, 1922, p. 539.

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