Birth control in antiquity.
The question of birth rate control in Antiquity clashes against problems in the sense that the majority of ancient authors when discussing this matter expressed themselves in a very unclear way; they did not distinguish exactly between contraceptives and abortifacients and sometimes even interchanged them mutually. The ancient Greek doctors studied long and precisely this area of gynaecology and especially Hippocrates and his school contributed a lot to study of abortions and abortifacients. Contraceptive theories and methods proclaimed by Greek and Roman doctors meant a significant progress in development of medical science. The opinions of doctors of Hippocrates group, Sorano of Efes and others, confirm their importance for medical practice by their wide and frequent occurrence in medical writings. Some methods of contraception defended by Greek and Roman doctors were very effective and many pieces of information became basis for modern contraceptive means, others certainly did not achieve the desired effects.
Department of Foreign Languages, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Martin, Slovakia. bujalkova@jfmed.uniba.sk
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D000019:Abortifacient Agents / Q000266:history; D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000266:history*; D003267:Contraception / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D018645:Greek World; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D018644:Roman World
D000019:Abortifacient Agents