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CHAPTER TWO

fore avoids one of the objections to the sheath, while it does stand on guard between the ovum and the motile spermatozoon.

While the main object, that is the prevention of the sperm from reaching the ovum, may appear to be equally accomplished by both of these methods, the subsidiary uses of the coital act are not interfered with in the latter procedure in the way they are by the use of the condom, and, therefore, the pessary approaches the theoretically perfect standard method much more nearly than does the condom.

The accessory values of properly completed coitus are too frequently ignored in general practice, and much marital unhappiness can be traced to the widespread ignorance among the lay public of the essential facts of coitus and the benefits to be derived from it. In illustration of this theme (which, for the purpose of this book, must be treated as axiomatic), one or two references may be mentioned. For instance: Havelock Ellis[1] notes the experience of an Austrian gynecologist that of every hundred women who came to him with uterine troubles, seventy suffered from congestion

  1. Ellis, Havelock (1910), "Sex in Relation to Society." Pp. xvi, 656. See p. 551.

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