'Sexual chemistry' before the pill: science, industry and chemical contraceptives, 1920-1960

The history of contraceptives met the history of drugs long before the invention of the contraceptive pill. In the first half of the twentieth century, numerous pharmaceutical laboratories, including major ones, manufactured and marketed chemical contraceptives: jellies, suppositories, creams, powders and foams applied locally to prevent conception. Efforts to put an end to the marginal status of these products and to transform them into 'ethical' drugs played an important role in the development of standardized laboratory tests of efficacy of contraceptive preparations; debates on the validity of such tests; evaluation of the long-term toxicity of chemical compounds; and the rise of collaborations between activists, non-profit organizations and the pharmaceutical industry. Chemical contraceptives were initially associated with quack medicine, shady commercial practices and doubtful morality. Striving to change the status of contraceptives and to promote safe and efficient products that reduced fertility in humans shaped some of the key features of the present-day production and regulation of pharmaceuticals.

Barrier contraception: a comprehensive overview

The barrier class of contraceptives used either alone or with supplementary spermicidal agents includes the most ancient of methods for the control of human fertility. Modern innovations have effected marked improvement in their efficacy and acceptability, so that they have become key means of controlling fertility in the world today. The traditional diaphragms and condoms decreased in popularity to some extent when methods such as the OCs and IUDs became available for general use. However, the plain or medicated barriers are regaining their rightful position in our contraceptive armamentarium as more and more questions are being raised about the real or potential adverse side effects of systemic and intrauterine contraceptives. There is evidence throughout the world of the growing popularity and use of locally acting mechanical and/or spermicidal contraceptive methods. Their impact upon the increasing world population can be expected to become even greater when the true need for the control of fertility becomes more generally recognized and appreciated.