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The womb veil was a 19th-century American form of barrier contraception consisting of an occlusive pessary made of rubber. It was a forerunner to the modern diaphragm and cervical cap.〔Janet Farrell Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America'' (Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 216 (online ); Andrea Tone, ''Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America'' (MacMillan, 2001), p. 14. An illustration of occlusive pessaries of the womb-veil type may be viewed in Vern L. Bullough, ''Encyclopedia of Birth Control'' (ABC-Clio, 2003), p. 206 (online. )〕 The name was first used by Edward Bliss Foote in 1863 for the device he designed and marketed.〔Robert Jütte, ''Contraception: A History'' (Polity Press, 2008, originally published in German 2003), p. 154 (online. )〕 "Womb veil" became the most common 19th-century American term for similar devices,〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion'', p. 212.〕 and continued to be used into the early 20th century. Womb veils were among a "range of contraceptive technology of questionable efficacy" available to American women of the 19th century,〔Jeffrey D. Nichols, ''Prostitution, Polygamy and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847–1918'' (University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 69 (online. )〕 forms of which began to be advertised in the 1830s and 1840s.〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion'', pp. 190 and 212.〕 They could be bought widely through mail-order catalogues; when induced abortion was criminalized in the United States during the 1870s, reliance on birth control increased.〔Esther Katz, "The History of Birth Control in the United States," in ''History of Medicine'' (Routledge, 1988), vol. 4, pp. 89–90 (online ); Andrea Tone, ''Controlling Reproduction: An American History'' p. 215 (online. )〕 Womb veils were touted as a discreet form of contraception, with one catalogue of erotic products from the 1860s promising that they could be "used by the female without danger of detection by the male."〔Donna Dennis, ''Licentious Gotham: Erotic Publishing and Its Prosecution in Nineteenth-Century New York'' (Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 215–216 (online. )〕 The use of rubber pessaries for contraception likely arose from the 19th-century practice of correcting a prolapsed uterus with such a device; the condition seems to have been far more frequently diagnosed than its incidence would warrant, and at times may have been a fiction for employing a pessary for birth control.〔Angus McLaren, "Birth Control: The Diaphragm," in ''Eyewitness to Science'' (Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 175; Katz, "The History of Birth Control in the United States," p. 91.〕 As with the production of condoms for men, the development of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear helped make barrier contraceptives for women more reliable and inexpensive.〔Patricia Aikens Murphy, Katherine Morgan, and Frances E. Likis, "Contraception," in ''Women's Gynecologic Health'' (Jones and Bartlett, 2006), p. 177 ( online ); Larry Lankton, ''Beyond the Boundaries: Life and Landscape at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, 1840–1875'' (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 160 ( online ); Tone, ''Devices and Desires'', p. 14.〕 Other terms for the contraceptive diaphragm were "female preventatives", "female protectors", "Victoria's protectors", and the "French pessary" ("F.P.") or "pessaire preventif".〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America'', p. 5.〕 This linguistic variety, some of it euphemistic, makes it difficult to distinguish in the literature among diaphragms, cervical caps, female condoms, and other pessaries; one form of "womb veil" is described in 1890 as "like a ring pessary covered by a membraneous envelope."〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America'', p. 216.〕 Another source in 1895 describes it as "a small soft rubber cup surrounded at the brim by a flexible rubber ring about an inch or inch and a quarter in diameter."〔William Pawson Chunn, "The Prevention of Conception. Its Practicability and Justifiability," ''Hot Spring Medical Journal'' 4 (1895), p. 83.〕 ==Social history== The Popular Health Movement of the Jacksonian era encouraged the sharing of knowledge about contraception, and contraceptive devices were advertised openly in newspaper ads and in brochures throughout the first half of the 19th century.〔Adele Clark, ''Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the Problems of Sex'' (University of California Press, 1998), p. 167 (online. )〕 Among their proponents was the physician Edward Bliss Foote. Foote introduced his device, the womb veil, in a self-published book entitled ''Medical Common Sense'':
Foote appears to have been the first to use the term "womb veil", in introducing his vaginal diaphragm in 1863.〔Lee L. Bean, Geraldine P. Mineau, and Douglas L. Anderton, ''Fertility Change on the American Frontier: Adaptation and Innovation'' (University of California Press, 1990), p. 30 ( online ); Vern L. Bullough, ''Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research'' (Basic Books, 1994), p. 106 ( online. )〕 The explicitness of his description is regarded as "rather remarkable" for its time.〔Christopher Hoolihan, ''An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine and Health Reform'' (University of Rochester Press, 2001), vol. 1, p. 335 (online. )〕 Foote touted his device as "the only reliable means yet discovered for the prevention of conception," and sold it "closely sealed" through the mail at a cost of $6. Foote may have gotten the idea for his device from an 1838 German treatise on cervical caps, or from acquaintance with the German tradition of midwifery that had been brought to the United States.〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America'', p. 218.〕 Although he mentions his intention to obtain a patent, none is recorded.〔Michael Sappol, ''A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America'' (Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 369.〕 "Succinct, straightforward" advertising for birth control devices, as well as for aphrodisiacs and drugs to induce abortion and cure venereal disease, had been common in newspapers of the 1830s and 40s.〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion'', p. 190.〕 But in 1873, the Comstock laws made it illegal to disseminate information about contraception.〔Lis Harris, ''Rules of Engagement: Four Couples and American Marriage Today'' (Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 106 (online. ) As Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion'', pp. 191–192, notes, even "eminently respectable" publications were subject to accusations. For an editorial fulmination against advertising various remedies for gonorrhea and impotence, with greater indignation directed at even the possibility of exposure to ads for condoms and womb veils ("this literature of sin, a fertile source of immorality"), see "Death to Quacks," ''Toledo Medical and Surgical Journal'' 2 (1878), pp. 415–416 (online. )〕 The following year, Foote was arrested and convicted under Comstock.〔John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, ''Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America'' (University of Chicago Press, 1988, 1997, 2nd ed.), p. 161 (online. )〕 His pamphlets were seized and destroyed, although his descriptions of the womb veil survive in early editions of his book.〔Bullough, ''Science in the Bedroom'', p. 106.〕 In subsequent editions, he was required to cut back the section on contraception to focus on douching, usually referred to in the literature of the time as the use of syringes.〔As in the 1868 edition of Foote's book, p. 381. See Chesler, ''Woman of Valor'', p. 70 (online ) and Hoolihan, ''An Annotated Catalogue'', pp. 335–337; also Tone, ''Devices and Desires'', p. 62.〕 Retailers were subjected to raids, with womb veils among the contraceptive devices confiscated.〔Brodie, ''Contraception and Abortion'', p. 235; Tone, ''Devices and Desires'', pp. 29 and 41. In March 1878, Anthony Comstock himself raided a druggist and seized an inventory that included six womb veils; another arrest netted 150.〕 Although contraceptive information in popular media was curtailed, technical and medical journals and textbooks were not subject to this regulation, and physicians continued to discuss both issues and technologies pertaining to birth control.〔Katz, "The History of Birth Control in the United States," p. 91.〕 The early 20th century saw a resurgence of interest in birth control in the United States, due largely to the efforts of Margaret Sanger, Fania Mindell and other social activists. One of the most outspoken advocates for contraception during this time was Emma Goldman, who openly defied the Comstock laws by recommending the womb veil in leaflets she distributed after her lectures.〔Including ''Why and How the Poor Should Not Have Many Children''; see Linda Gordon, ''The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America'' (University of Illinois Press, 1974, 2002), p. 148 ( online ), and Ellen Chesler, ''Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America'' (Simon & Schuster, 1992, 2007), p. 88.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「womb veil」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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