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CONTRACEPTION

often recommended substances for vaginal douching.

So early as 1623 a very great book, of three large volumes, was published in Latin, which dealt in detail with varieties of impotence and sterility in and out of marriage.[1]

I have not yet succeeded in discovering an English book or pamphlet in the sixteen hundreds, though I feel sure that such existed. If it did not, there must have been a considerable knowledge in circulation, probably derived from the frequent traffic to and from the continent, because in 1695 a whole book was written to condemn those who had small families.[2] The author then addressed his dedication to a friend who had "a fair number of children, fourteen" . . . and praising him condemns those who "will desire Issue for the Continuing of their Names; but they will prescribe their Number." He quotes the arguments used by the persons who desire small families, and these arguments ring with the very note of to-day! And he is scornful of those who "nowadays are

  1. ↑ Thomas Sanchez (1623): "Disputationum de sancto Matrimonii Sacramento." 3 vols. Pp. 1928.
  2. ↑ "Populaidias (1695) or a Discourse Concerning the Having Many Children In which the Prejudices against having a Numerous Offspring are Removed, and the Objections Answered." Pp. 124. London, 1695.

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