HERB - [TY] Period contraceptions

Kathleen Keeler kkeeler at unlinfo.unl.edu
Tue Feb 16 07:11:08 PST 1999



Christine A Seelye-King wrote:

> The Tavern Yard (Meridies' Chat List)

> Get thee to the Library and pick up the March/April 1994 issue of
> Archaeology.
> The issue is called "Birth Control in the Ancient World".  It has a very
> interesting article on Silphium.  An herbal birth control that was so
> valuable
> that silver coins depicted it.  Unfortunately Silphium was wiped out from
> over
> harvest by our time of study.

The best thing I know on period contraceptives is that same John M Riddle of
North Carolina State U.,
Contraception and abortion from the Ancient world to the Renaissance. 1992.
Harvard U. Press
ISBN  067416876-3 (the paperback)  It cost me $17.

It is very scholarly, very thorough.  Greek, Roman,  Judaica, Egyptian sources,
Medieval including Arabic Medicine and consideration of how the contraceptives
and abortifacients were translated when brought into Europe.
Lots of plants mentioned: chaste tree, mints, pennyroyal, white willow, white
poplar bark, Artemisia...and whether
they provoked mensturation, were contraceptives or abortifacients.  I haven't
read it--just looked for stuff it in--and getting it out to tell you about made
me want very much to find time to read it.  Lots of discussion of how people
looked at
contraception and abortion and how the medical profession treated it. Under the
Middle Ages:  "We have no evidence however that any writer in the Middle Ages
got into trouble for writng about birth control. For a modern historian, any
attempt to reconcile the church's position on abortion and contraception with
the medical writings is summarily difficult and ultimately unrewarding." p.
116.

Also of interest is Jacques Rossiaud. Medieval Prostitution. published by
Barnes and Noble.  1996. ISBN 0-76070-119-9
translated from the French.  More attitudes than herbs but very interesting.

Agnes
kkeeler1 at unl.edu

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