Epic Failures in Contraception

There is a write up discussing contraception in the "good old days".  It tells me one thing.  People have been idiots for a long time.

On second thought, you might prefer an oral contraceptive. Start with the earliest recipe, from ancient Egypt, but be careful: before you drink the mixture of oil, celery, and beer, the papyrus instructs each woman to “fumigate her vagina with emmer seeds.” Yowch. Don’t let that singed smell put you off though—in lab rats, celery extract did terminate a third of pregnancies. But celery’s low success rate couldn’t hold a candle to the silphium plant, whose popularity as a classical Greek and Roman contraceptive drove it to extinction. Modern testing has revealed that other herbs and plants recommended by ancient authors, such as cow parsnip and the wild yam called Barbasco root, contain chemicals that can influence hormone levels. Of course, not all oral contraceptives had to contain plant matter: Native women in today’s New Brunswick brewed tea out of preserved beaver testicles, which could have provided androgen to influence their hormonal balance and decrease fertility.