It was not long before Place's prophetic words began to be realized, and in another half century the movement was affecting the birthrate of all civilized lands, though it can scarcely yet be said that justice has been done to the pioneers who promoted it in the face of much persecution from the ignorant and superstitious public whom they sought to benefit. In 1831, Robert Dale Owen, the son of Robert Owen, published his Moral Physiology, setting forth the methods of preventing conception. A little later the brothers George and Charles Drysdale (born 1825 and 1829), two ardent and unwearying philanthropists, devoted much of their energy to the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles. George Drysdale, in 1854, published his Elements of Social Science, which during many years had an enormous circulation all over Europe in eight different languages. It was by no means in every respect a scientific or sound work, but it certainly had great influence, and it came into the hands of many who never saw any other work on sexual topics. Although the Neo-Malthusian propagandists of those days often met with much obloquy, their cause was triumphantly vindicated in 1876, when Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, having been prosecuted for disseminating Neo-Malthusian pamphlets, the charge was dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice declaring that so ill-advised and injudicious a charge had probably never before been made in a court of justice. This trial, even by its mere publicity and apart from its issue, gave an enormous impetus to the Neo-Malthusian movement. It is well known that the steady decline in the English birthrate begun in 1877, the year following the trial. There could be no more brilliant illustration of the fact, that what used to be called "the instruments of Providence" are indeed unconscious instruments in bringing about great ends which they themselves were far from either intending or desiring.
In 1877, Dr. C. R. Drysdale founded the Malthusian League, and edited a periodical, The Malthusian, aided throughout by his wife, Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery. He died in 1907. (The noble and pioneering work of the Drysdales has not yet been adequately recognized in their own country; an appreciative and well-informed article by Dr. Hermann Rohleder, "Dr. C. R. Drysdale, Der Hauptvortreter der Neumalthusianische Lehre," appeared in the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, March, 1908). There are now societies and periodicals in all civilized countries for the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles, as they are still commonly called, though it would be desirable to avoid the use of Malthus's name in this connection. In the medical profession, the advocacy of preventive methods of sexual intercourse, not on social, but on medical and hygienic grounds, began same thirty years ago, though in France, at an earlier date, Raciborski advocated the method of avoiding the neighborhood of menstruation. In Germany, Dr. Mensinga, the gynæcologist, is the most prominent advocate, on medical and hygienic grounds, of what he terms "facultative sterility," which he first put forward about 1889. In Russia, about the same time, artificial sterility was first openly advocated by the distinguished gynæcologist, Professor Ott, at the St. Petersburg Obstetric and Gynæcological Society. Such medical recommendations, in particular cases, are now becoming common.
There are certain cases in which a person ought not to marry at all; this is so, for instance, when there has been an attack of insanity; it can never be said with certainty that a person who has had one attack of insanity will not have another, and persons who have had such attacks ought not, as Blandford says (Lumleian Lectures on Insanity, British Medical Journal, April 20, 1895), "to inflict on their partner for life, the anxiety, and even danger, of another attack." There are other and numerous cases in which marriage may be permitted, or may have already taken place, under more favorable circumstances, but where it is, or has become, highly desirable that there should be no children. This is the case when a first attack of insanity occurs after marriage, the more urgently if the affected party is the wife, and especially if the disease takes the form of puerperal mania. "What can be more lamentable," asks Blandford (loc. cit.), "than to see a woman break down in childbed, recover, break down again with the next child, and so on, for six, seven, or eight children, the recovery between each being less and less, until she is almost a chronic maniac?" It has been found, moreover, by Tredgold (Lancet, May 17, 1902), that among children born to insane mothers, the mortality is twice as great as the ordinary infantile mortality, in even the poorest districts. In cases of unions between persons with tuberculous antecedents, also, it is held by many (e.g., by Massalongo, in discussing tuberculosis and marriage at the Tuberculosis Congress, at Naples, in 1900) that every precaution should be taken to make the marriage childless. In a third class of cases, it is necessary to limit the children to one or two; this happens in some forms of heart disease, in which pregnancy has a progressively deteriorating effect on the heart (Kisch, Therapeutische Monatsheft, Feb., 1898, and Sexual Life of Woman; Vinay, Lyon Medical, Jan. 8, 1889); in some cases of heart disease, however, it is possible that, though there is no reason for prohibiting marriage, it is desirable for a woman not to have any children (J. F. Blacker, "Heart Disease in Relation to Pregnancy," British Medical Journal, May 25, 1907).
In all such cases, the recommendation of preventive methods of intercourse is obviously an indispensable aid to the physician in emphasizing the supremacy of hygienic precautions. In the absence of such methods, he can never be sure that his warnings will be heard, and even the observance of his advice would be attended with various undesirable results. It sometimes happens that a married couple agree, even before marriage, to live together without sexual relations, but, for various reasons, it is seldom found possible or convenient to maintain this resolution for a long period.
It is the recognition of these and similar considerations which has led—though only within recent years—on the one hand, as we have seen, to the embodiment of the control of procreation into the practical morality of all civilized nations, and, on the other hand, to the assertion, now perhaps without exception, by all medical authorities on matters of sex that the use of the methods of preventing conception is under certain circumstances urgently necessary and quite harmless.[[432]] It arouses a smile to-day when we find that less than a century ago it was possible for an able and esteemed medical author to declare that the use of "various abominable means" to prevent conception is "based upon a most presumptuous doubt in the conservative power of the Creator."[[433]]
The adaptation of theory to practice is not yet complete, and we could not expect that it should be so, for, as we have seen, there is always an antagonism between practical morality and traditional morality. From time to time flagrant illustrations of this antagonism occur.[[434]] Even in England, which played a pioneering part in the control of procreation, attempts are still made—sometimes in quarters where we have a right to expect a better knowledge—to cast discredit on a movement which, since it has conquered alike scientific approval and popular practice, it is now idle to call in question.
It would be out of place to discuss here the various methods which are used for the control of procreation, or their respective merits and defects. It is sufficient to say that the condom or protective sheath, which seems to be the most ancient of all methods of preventing conception, after withdrawal, is now regarded by nearly all authorities as, when properly used, the safest, the most convenient, and the most harmless method.[[435]] This is the opinion of Krafft-Ebing, of Moll, of Schrenck-Notzing, of Löwenfeld, of Forel, of Kisch, of Fürbringer, to mention only a few of the most distinguished medical authorities.[[436]]
There is some interest in attempting to trace the origin and history of the condom, though it seems impossible to do so with any precision. It is probable that, in a rudimentary form, such an appliance is of great antiquity. In China and Japan, it would appear, rounds of oiled silk paper are used to cover the mouth of the womb, at all events, by prostitutes. This seems the simplest and most obvious mechanical method of preventing conception, and may have suggested the application of a sheath to the penis as a more effectual method. In Europe, it is in the middle of the sixteenth century, in Italy, that we first seem to hear of such appliances, in the shape of linen sheaths, adapted to the shape of the penis; Fallopius recommended the use of such an appliance. Improvements in the manufacture were gradually devised; the cæcum of the lamb was employed, and afterwards, isinglass. It appears that a considerable improvement in the manufacture took place in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and this improvement was generally associated with England. The appliance thus became known as the English cape or mantle, the "capote anglaise," or the "redingote anglaise," and, under the latter name, is referred to by Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century (Casanova, Mémoires, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 464); Casanova never seems, however, to have used these redingotes himself, not caring, he said, "to shut myself up in a piece of dead skin in order to prove that I am perfectly alive." These capotes—then made of goldbeaters' skin—were, also, it appears, known at an earlier period to Mme. de Sévigné, who did not regard them with favor, for, in one of her letters, she refers to them as "cuirasses contre la volupté et toiles d'arraignée contre le mal." The name, "condom," dates from the eighteenth century, first appearing in France, and is generally considered to be that of an English physician, or surgeon, who invented, or, rather, improved the appliance. Condom is not, however, an English name, but there is an English name, Condon, of which "condom" may well be a corruption. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that the word sometimes actually was written "condon." Thus, in lines quoted by Bachaumont, in his Diary (Dec. 15, 1773), and supposed to be addressed to a former ballet dancer who had become a prostitute, I find:—
"Du condon cependant, vous connaissez l'usage,