In 1240, Zhao Mengqi, the eleventh grandson of Emperor Taizong of Song, was born, and was adopted as an adopted son by Emperor Lizong of Song, made crown prince in 1260, and ascended the throne in 1264. But in fact, Zhao Mengqi's birth was an accident:
Zhao Mengqi's mother was Lady Huang of the State of Qi, a concubine in the palace with a relatively low status. Soon after Huang's pregnancy, she was discovered by Mrs. Zhengfang and asked Huang to take fetal pills. However, Wan Wan did not expect that the fetal pill did not have an effect, and later Huang gave birth to Zhao Mengqi. However, due to taking fetal drugs, Zhao Mengqi was frail and sick since he was a child, and his intellectual development was relatively late.
Historically, Zhao Mengqi was not the only emperor to survive the poor effects of the abortion pills. Previously, Liu Xie, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, also survived because of the poor effect of the abortion pills. From here, it is not difficult to see that the demand for abortion or contraception in ancient times was still very high, especially in the royal family and aristocracy.
So in addition to taking abortion pills, how did the ancients use contraception?
How did ancient people use contraception? Is contraception mainly in men or women?
For the ancients, there were roughly two groups of people who needed contraception. The first is the royal nobility, which usually requires contraception due to the complexity of interpersonal relationships among the royal nobility; Another type of group of people is the ancient Qinglou women, mainly because of the special nature of the work of this group of people, so that such people must know the way of contraception.
We all know that although ancient Chinese men and women were feudal and conservative in their thinking, and there was also the idea of "men and women not being intimate", but people always had the beginning of the love sinus, and they could not avoid the time when men and women loved, and our ancients often opened their minds and came up with a lot of methods that can be used for contraception, and even in many contraceptive methods, we can still see the shadow of our modern contraception.
First of all, the ancients were very fond of pharmacological methods of contraception. We all know that the culture of Chinese medicine is broad and profound, and the most used contraceptive pill by ancient people is musk. The principle of its role is that musk has the effect of activating blood stasis and reducing swelling and pain, when the drug occurs, the drug effect will go back and forth throughout the user's body, it is very easy to hurt the woman's uterus, and it has the effect of falling into the womb.
In addition to musk, saffron has the same effect. According to legend, if the emperor did not want a concubine or palace maid to become pregnant in the court of the Ming and Qing dynasties, he would ask the eunuch to hang it upside down and wash her lower body with saffron water, so that he thought that he could rinse the semen in the body and thus achieve the effect of contraception. Of course, saffron can also be boiled tea for oral administration, which can also play a corresponding effect.
Secondly, it is the use of physical contraception. When ancient people used physical contraception, they could also see the prototype of our modern condoms, but this method was used more frequently in the ancient West, especially in ancient Rome. At that time, ancient Roman wars were frequent, and the ancient Romans used the human skins of dead soldiers or captives to cut and process them to make a condom. However, the quality of this condom is very poor, which can be considered the prototype of modern condoms.
Later, in order to prevent syphilis, people used their wisdom to make condoms on the animals' gastrointestinal tract and gallbladder, most of which were made of lamb's cecum, very thin, and modern condoms are very close.
In ancient China, we also used the organs of animals to make condoms, but in ancient China, we used fish offal as condoms. If the man and woman have sex, the man will wear a fish bleached condom as a contraceptive tool, but the problem of this condom is very easy to break, and the fishy smell is too bad, and then this physical contraceptive method is abandoned.
Finally, the most bizarre method of contraception of the ancients is the thought of contraception. We all know that the ancient people did not have so many recreational activities as they do now, they returned home after a day of labor, and men and women returned home to think about the love of men and women. So people use their minds and thoughts for contraception.
In fact, the method of operation is very simple, if both men and women want to have sex, as long as they lock their own doors, chanting mantras can achieve the purpose of contraception. However, from our modern point of view, this method of contraception can be said to be ridiculous. Even worse, the blood from the woman's private parts is thrown into the fire, and then the incantation is chanted to achieve the purpose of contraception. These methods of contraception later proved to be ineffective at all.
Ancient contraceptive methods are varied and strange, but often do not work well, because the ancient people did not know the source of the fetus and the lack of knowledge of both sexes.
Even with the relatively scientific Chinese medicine acupuncture method is difficult to achieve complete contraception, for modern people, with the progress and development of science and technology and the understanding of gender knowledge, we gradually understand how to scientifically carry out contraception, so what are the commonly used contraceptive methods now?
Second, compared with ancient people, how do we modern people use contraception?
In fact, our modern people's contraceptive methods are no less than those of ancient people, but most contraceptive methods have a fairly high contraceptive success rate. First of all, it is what we often call the intrauterine birth control device, which is what our parents call the "ring". In China, this kind of contraception was more popular at that time for parents or grandparents, and it is not very popular at present.
This method of contraception is more popular in the modern West, doctors put the intrauterine device into the uterus through simple operation, its privacy is good, the success rate of contraception can be said to be quite high, and its principle of action is to kill sperm or interfere with the normal implantation of fertilized eggs.
The biggest disadvantage is that the validity period of this "ring" is as long as 20 years, and often many people forget to let go of the "ring" after 20 years, resulting in the "ring" being placed in the body all the time, thus affecting the health of the body. This type of contraception is suitable for women who do not consider having children for a long time.
Second, the common way of contraception in modern people is the condom. This type of contraception is the most popular at the moment, the success rate of contraception is relatively high, and it does not require a small operation like the intrauterine birth control ring. Of course, the success rate of contraception in this way is lower than that of birth control rings, mainly because many people use condoms in the wrong way, or they buy inferior products when buying condoms.
From the perspective of the way of use, contraception with the help of condoms must be used throughout the process to be able to exert maximum effectiveness. At the same time, one of the great benefits of condom use is that it can prevent transmissible diseases, especially AIDS. Therefore, the use of condoms for contraception can be said to have the effect of killing two birds with one stone.
Of course, in addition to the above two more effective contraceptive methods, there are also some contraceptive methods that are relatively poor, such as: sexual life during the safe period of women. It can be said that this is a very irresponsible practice, because the biggest side effect of safe period contraception is unintended pregnancy.
And although the time of the safe period is relatively stable, it may be due to personal emotions, surrounding environmental influences, and taking certain drugs earlier or later, so the way to carry out contraception through the safe period is quite unreliable.
At the same time, in vitro ejaculation is also a way of contraception failure rate is extremely high. Most men think that since there is no sperm entering the woman's body, they will naturally not get pregnant, but the truth is just the opposite. Before the man ejaculates, a small amount of sperm enters the woman's body, although the amount is not much, but these sperm are enough to make the woman pregnant, and the failure rate of this contraceptive method is as high as 30%.
Therefore, in addition to the in vitro ejaculation contraceptive method, there are misunderstandings about some contraceptive methods and contraceptive related knowledge.
Third, what are the misunderstandings of modern people about contraception?
Although modern people are much better at contraception and gender knowledge than ancient people, there are still some people who often think that the correct view of contraception is a misunderstanding, and the misunderstanding is concentrated on the contraceptive pill and the birth control ring.
First of all, taking birth control pills can affect fertility, so many women are reluctant to take birth control pills. Many women believe that taking the pill can lead to infertility, but there is no research to confirm that the pill causes a decline in women's fertility. In principle, long-acting contraceptives and short-acting contraceptives only increase the viscosity of cervical fluid, increase the difficulty of sperm entering the fallopian tubes, as long as you stop taking the drug to restore ovulation function and will not affect future fertility.
However, if you take emergency contraceptives, it can indirectly affect fertility. The dose of emergency contraception is more than ten times that of conventional contraceptives. Taking such a large dose of the drug in the short term to interfere with ovarian function will cause no small damage to the function of the ovaries in women.
Although it does not cause infertility, the probability of neonatal malformations increases after pregnancy, so it is necessary to take emergency contraception with caution.
Secondly, women who have given birth can only use birth control rings, which is also a typical contraceptive misunderstanding. The older generation may think that the birth control ring can only be used after giving birth, just as the idea that men need to have sex after giving birth to ligature. However, according to modern trends, the birth control ring no longer belongs only to women who have already given birth, and almost all women of childbearing age on the mainland can use the birth control ring for contraception. Although this method of contraception is not well known, it is a very effective method of contraception from the perspective of safety.
Finally, taking the pill is bound to get fat. Again, this view is too absolute, and many young women are very worried that taking the pill will affect their slim figure. So, we can take a look at what the pill works to cause weight gain. In the past, there will be a certain role of estrogen in the birth control pill, and taking this contraceptive pill will lead to an increase in appetite and metabolism, which will lead to obesity and edema.
However, this is unlikely to happen to the new generation of contraceptives, and the past pills have been improved accordingly, and the progesterone has been improved in the case of the same contraceptive effect, so that there is no need to worry about getting fat after taking the pill.
IV. Conclusion
From the perspective of ancient people, because there is no corresponding knowledge of the sexes as a prelude, so the way of contraception is strange, some may be folk remedies, not only the success rate of contraception is low, the damage to the body is not small. Ancient people even took toxic substances to use as a role in contraception.
From the perspective of modern people, our contraceptive methods are diverse, there are contraceptive rings with high contraceptive rates, condoms, etc., and we can also play the role of emergency contraception by taking contraceptive pills.
However, among all contraceptive methods, there is no shortage of unscientific means of ejaculation in vitro and the use of safe period contraception. Therefore, whether it is a male friend or a female friend, you must not let yourself or your partner use these unscientific means for contraception, otherwise the accidental pregnancy will be more harmful to women after that.
Bibliography:
[1] Xiang Yun. Unveiling the wonderful measures of ancient contraception[J]. Everyone's Health, 2008(5):2.
[2] Cheng Si. Contraception in ancient China[J]. Look at history, 2015.