How did women in ancient times prevent pregnancy?

From a scientific point of view, contraception is actually to prevent the combination of sperm and egg. In our opinion, there are many options for contraception, including oral contraceptives and condoms. However, these methods did not exist in ancient times, so it was indeed difficult for ancient women to prevent pregnancy. However, there were many methods. So how did ancient women prevent pregnancy?

It is said that there is a folk remedy that says to dry seven persimmon stems with tiles, eat forty-nine persimmons for seven consecutive days, and drink them with cold boiling water. It can keep you infertile for a year, but you cannot eat persimmons within a year. If you want to get pregnant, eat seven more persimmon stems. It sounds a bit weird, but according to modern medical research, persimmon stalks contain oleanolic acid and betulinic acid. Chinese medicine often uses it with ginseng and clove powder to make persimmon powder, which has the effect of reducing qi and stopping hiccups.

The flowers, roots and skin of persimmon are also very good medicinal materials. It can be said that the whole body of the persimmon tree is a treasure. During the Republic of China period, a prostitute wrote a book similar to a memoir which introduced a plot about contraception. She said that before receiving a customer, the brothel owner would make her drink a kind of soup which tasted sweet and sour and was very delicious. After drinking it, you will never get pregnant again... But the soup that this prostitute drank should be water brewed with persimmon stalk powder, but there is also a saying that persimmon stalks are brewed with rice wine.

In ancient China, prostitutes in brothels used certain toxic drugs in traditional Chinese medicine to prevent pregnancy. For example, the mercury mentioned above, and arsenic or strychnine for contraception. Although large doses of these drugs can cause death, small doses can kill the fetus in the womb. Therefore, prostitutes who use this method of contraception will be permanently and irreversibly infertile for life. Often, the madams secretly give them drugs when they first start working as prostitutes.

In fact, there were quite a lot of contraceptive methods in ancient my country. The things similar to condoms mentioned above and contraceptive pills also appeared in "Classic of Mountains and Seas". There was also an introduction to the safe period contraceptive method in ancient documents. Of course, the contraceptive methods used by ordinary women and prostitutes in brothels in ancient times were quite different. The prostitutes in brothels used irreversible methods.

The above introduction has clearly explained how women in ancient times used contraception. From this we can see that contraception was indeed very difficult in ancient times, and there were certain risks, and the probability of contraceptive failure was also quite high. Although some methods seem to be effective, using drugs to solve problems in the long term will endanger your health over time.