ABSTRACT

Many of the warnings about the difficulty of diagnosing pregnancy were intended to prevent the involvement of some unwary practitioner in such a scheme. The promotion of fertility received much attention, and the daily rules and regulations for pregnant women had as their chief object the prevention of miscarriage. The trial of Eleanor Merriman for abortion using iron instruments was reported in the Gentleman's Magazine in August 1732; she was found guilty and sentenced to the pillory and three years imprisonment. Although the condom and the contraceptive sponge both existed in the seventeenth century there is not the faintest suggestion that any of the medical writers even knew of them. Lists of medicines to bring on the terms included such items as rue and savin, which were still popular abortifacients for self-administration in the nineteenth century, and according to Thomas Raynald few or no women were ignorant of such things.