Friday Fun Link For Now, But In Nine Months Your Whole Life Will Change
Reporters have been rummaging through Percy Skuy's collection of "bizarre, and often totally misguided" contraceptives. In the meantime, Skuy's artifacts have been an inspiration to his wife:
As a gesture to conclude the evening, Percy presented me with a "Cup of Roots," crafted by his ceramicist wife Elsa, embodying…several different forms of contraception, from antiquity to recent times. Mounted on one side is a crocodile, representing crocodile dung used in ancient Egypt as a vaginal suppository with spermicidal effect. On the other side of the cup are two rings: the Grafenberg ring, the first modern IUD introduced in 1926 by Dr. Ernst Grafenberg, and a contemporary vaginal contraceptive ring, like Organon's NuvaRing (etonogestrel and ethinyl estradiol ring). The stem of the cup is shaped like a dried beaver testicle, which was steeped in alcohol and the resulting brew consumed for its contraceptive qualities by women in New Brunswick, Canada. The base of the cup is shaped in the form of an Ortho DIALPAK tablet dispenser, adopted in 1962 by Ortho Pharmaceutical for its first oral contraceptive, Ortho-Novum.