The History of Contraception: From Ancient Egypt’s Crocodile Dung to the Modern Pill

Around 1850 BCE, the Kahun Papyrus of Egypt recorded three contraceptive prescriptions. One called for mixing crocodile dung with a paste-like substance and inserting it into the body.^[1] By today’s standards, this sounds bizarre — but it is not entirely without scientific basis. Crocodile dung is alkaline, and in a manner similar to some modern spermicides, it may have been capable of neutralizing sperm.^[2] Whether the ancient Egyptians understood the mechanism is unknown, but what is clear is that they had discovered something through observation and experience.

The history of humanity’s attempts to control pregnancy is as old as civilization itself. This is not simply a story of medical progress. It is a story of intertwined power, morality, science, and personal freedom.

Ancient Egypt and Greece: Experimentation and Observation

The Ebers Papyrus, the most comprehensive Egyptian medical document dating to around 1550 BCE, describes a contraceptive method involving a mixture of dates, acacia, and honey applied to wool and inserted into the body.^[1] The primary active ingredient in acacia is lactic acid — a substance still found in some modern spermicide products. This 3,500-year-old prescription, in other words, was not mere folk remedy; it may have actually worked.

Ancient Greek physicians were also interested in contraception. Aristotle in the fourth century BCE described applying a mixture of olive oil, white lead, and frankincense to the cervix.^[3] Soranus in the second century CE, who left the most systematic gynecological work of his era, catalogued vaginal douches, suppositories, and methods of moving the body immediately after intercourse to expel semen.^[3] Some of these worked; others did not. But these records show that contraception was not a taboo subject — it was a subject of medical inquiry.

Silphium: Humanity’s First Purpose-Grown Contraceptive Plant

The most famous contraceptive plant of the ancient world was silphium. Native to the region of Cyrenaica, corresponding to modern-day Libya, this plant was traded throughout the Mediterranean world from the seventh century BCE to the first century CE.^[4] It was so economically significant that the city-state of Cyrene minted its seed shape onto coins.

The Roman physician Soranus recommended that women wishing to delay menstruation or prevent pregnancy take a pea-sized portion of silphium.^[4] What precise effect the plant had is now impossible to determine. Silphium was driven to extinction around the first century CE due to overharvesting and overgrazing.^[4] It is considered one of the earliest recorded cases of human-caused plant extinction. The fact that contraceptive demand wiped an entire plant species from the earth gives this story a significance beyond mere historical curiosity.

The Birth of the Condom: A History Syphilis Changed

Interestingly, the history of the condom begins not with contraception but with disease prevention. In the late fifteenth century, syphilis swept across Europe. The Italian anatomist Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) described, in his 1564 work De Morbo Gallico, a method of soaking a linen sheath in a medicated solution and fitting it over the penis.^[5] He claimed to have tested this method on more than 1,100 men, and reported that none of the users contracted syphilis.^[5]

Falloppio’s invention was not intended for contraception. Yet this linen sheath would go on to function as a contraceptive tool over the centuries that followed. By the eighteenth century, condoms made from sheep intestine or bladder had spread throughout Europe. These condoms were reusable and were tied in place with a ribbon.^[6]

The true mass popularization of the condom, however, came with the development of rubber technology in the nineteenth century. In 1839, Charles Goodyear invented the process of vulcanization — treating natural rubber with sulfur to create a stable and elastic material.^[6] The first rubber condom was produced in 1855, and mass production followed within decades. But rubber condoms had their problems: they were thick, had an unpleasant smell, and had a shelf life of only three months.^[6]

The decisive turning point came in the 1920s. The American Youngs Rubber Company applied latex technology to develop a thinner condom with a much longer shelf life of five years.^[7] Latex condoms were stronger and thinner than their predecessors, and because they did not require flammable solvents in manufacturing, they also eliminated the risk of factory fires. The brand this company sold was Trojan.

Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement: Between Illegality and Struggle

In the late nineteenth century United States, distributing information about contraception was itself a crime. The Comstock Act of 1873 prohibited the mailing of obscene materials, and contraceptive information and devices were included in that category.^[8] The law was named after anti-obscenity activist Anthony Comstock, who held the power to personally inspect postal mail as a special agent of the Justice Department.

The person who stepped forward to change this situation was Margaret Sanger (1879–1966), a nurse by training. Working as a nurse in the slums of New York, Sanger witnessed women dying from unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions. She argued that contraception was a women’s health issue and that women had the right to access such information.

On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened America’s first birth control clinic with her sister Ethel Byrne in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.^[8] Nine days after opening, the police raided the clinic and Sanger was arrested. But the arrest only turned her into an icon of a nationwide movement. Media attention poured in and wealthy supporters rallied around her.

Sanger’s legal battles slowly changed the law. In 1936, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that physicians could import and prescribe contraceptive devices for medical purposes.^[8] The lock of the Comstock Act began to open. Sanger later played a central role in founding the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

In Britain, Marie Stopes (1880–1958) played a similar role. A paleontologist by training, Stopes published the sex education book Married Love in 1918.^[9] It caused an immediate sensation, and thousands of letters poured in from the moment of publication — most of them requests for contraceptive advice. On March 17, 1921, Stopes opened Britain’s first birth control clinic with her husband in Holloway, London.^[9] Open free of charge to all married women, the clinic provided contraceptive counseling to 10,000 women by 1929.

The Birth of the Pill: Science, Money, and Determination

The birth of the modern oral contraceptive pill was not the invention of a single scientist but the result of science, capital, and social movement converging.

In 1951, the biochemist Gregory Pincus met Margaret Sanger. Sanger asked Pincus to create “a pill that prevents pregnancy with one tablet a day.”^[10] While conducting research at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Massachusetts, Pincus confirmed experimentally that progesterone suppressed ovulation in animals.

But the research required enormous funding. The person who provided it was Katharine McCormick, who poured her inherited wealth into the women’s rights movement and invested millions of dollars in Pincus’s research in the 1950s.^[10] Without the financial backing of the feminist movement at the time, the development of the pill would have been delayed considerably.

Pincus collaborated with John Rock, a Harvard Medical School obstetrician and gynecologist, to conduct clinical trials. In 1956, large-scale clinical trials began in Puerto Rico.^[10] Whether the women who participated in these trials gave fully informed consent has been the subject of ethical debate since. The criticism that the research team failed to adequately inform participants of potential side effects persists to this day.

On May 9, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an oral contraceptive under the name Enovid.^[11] This was the world’s first approved hormonal contraceptive. Within two years of its launch, 1.2 million American women had begun taking it.^[11]

The emergence of the pill was not simply the addition of one more contraceptive method. In the sense that women could now independently control pregnancy without the permission of a male partner or physician, it brought fundamental change to the structure of gender power.

The Fight in the Courts: The Legalization of Contraception

The arrival of the pill did not mean everyone was free to use it. In the United States, laws remained in some states that restricted unmarried women’s access to contraception.

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 in Griswold v. Connecticut that a Connecticut state law prohibiting the use of contraception by married couples violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution.^[12] This ruling established the principle that a broad right to privacy — not explicitly stated in the Constitution but derived from multiple provisions — exists, and it led to the 1972 case Eisenstadt v. Baird, which extended the right of access to contraception regardless of marital status.^[12]

The Dispute with the Catholic Church: Humanae Vitae

The greatest institutional resistance to the social acceptance of contraception came from the Catholic Church. In the mid-1960s, voices calling for a reconsideration of the Church’s official position on contraception grew louder within the institution. Pope John XXIII formed a commission to examine the issue, and Pope Paul VI expanded it. The majority opinion of the commission leaned toward permitting artificial contraception.^[13]

However, on July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, reaffirming that artificial contraception was “intrinsically wrong.”^[13] This declaration caused enormous reaction among Catholics worldwide. Subsequent polls found that a majority of American Catholics disagreed with the pope’s position.^[13]

Whether this encyclical actually prevented contraceptive use is questionable. Among Catholics in Western Europe and North America, contraceptive pill usage continued to increase steadily afterward. The gap between the Church’s official position and the actual behavior of its members grew ever wider.

The Medieval Taboo: Lost Centuries?

Following the flow of this article, one question may arise. If there was fairly advanced contraceptive knowledge in antiquity, why was there such a long gap before the modern pill?

One reason is religious prohibition. The Christian theologian Augustine (354–430 CE) argued that the sole legitimate purpose of sexual intercourse was procreation.^[3] This view was dominant throughout medieval Europe and defined contraception as an act contrary to the will of God. Contraceptive techniques did appear in medieval medical literature, but open discussion and practice were suppressed under religious pressure.

Yet this “lost centuries” narrative should not be understood too simplistically. Contraceptive knowledge survived in the medieval period within folk medical traditions, the oral knowledge of midwives, and the practices of herbal healers. The absence from official records does not mean it was not being used. The very reason it went unrecorded speaks to how dangerous the practice was considered to be.

The Diversification of Modern Contraceptive Technology

Contraceptive technology continued to advance after the oral contraceptive pill. The copper intrauterine device (Copper IUD) was introduced in the 1970s.^[14] This device uses the principle that copper’s toxic properties affect sperm and fertilized eggs, and once inserted it can remain effective for up to ten years. In the 1990s, the hormonal intrauterine device Mirena appeared.^[14]

Subdermal implants involve inserting a matchstick-sized rod under the skin on the inner arm and provide contraceptive protection for up to three years.^[14] Patch contraceptives, vaginal rings, and hormonal injections were also developed, broadening the range of choices available.

From the 2000s onward, emergency contraceptive pills (the morning-after pill) became generally available. When taken within a certain time window after intercourse, these pills can prevent pregnancy by suppressing ovulation or inhibiting the implantation of a fertilized egg. The question of whether emergency contraceptives could be sold over the counter without a prescription varied by country and generated ongoing controversy in many places.

What Contraception Reveals

Looking back at the history of contraception, we see how technological progress and the transformation of social rights have been intertwined. Between the acacia suppository of the Ebers Papyrus and the modern contraceptive pill lie 3,500 years. What blocked contraception during most of those 3,500 years was not, for the most part, the limitations of technology — it was a struggle over power: who should have the right to control reproduction.

From crocodile dung to acacia suppositories, linen sheaths, rubber condoms, and the oral contraceptive pill — this long history has been a sustained attempt by human beings to reclaim the right to make decisions about their own bodies and lives. And the fact that this right was secured only a few decades ago is a reminder of just how recent an acquisition it truly is.