Cervical caps made of beeswax, 14-karat gold IUDs and 100-year-old sheepskin condoms are among the items at a recently opened permanent exhibit on the history of contraception at Case Western Reserve University’s Dittrick Medical History Center.
The collection contains more than 650 contraceptive items. It was donated by Percy Skuy, a retired Canadian pharmacist and past president of Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical in Canada, now Janssen-Ortho Inc. Skuy spent some 40 years collecting devices from around the world, documenting a longstanding, international interest in birth control.
“The response has been amazing,” said Dr. James Edmonson, chief curator of Dittrick Medical History Center, who said visitors are particularly intrigued by elephant and crocodile dung used 3,000 years ago as vaginal suppositories in India and China. “Contraception really is a subject of universal human interest.”
The exhibit is free and open to the public daily; hours vary by day. For more information, call 216-368-3648 or visit www.cwru.edu/artsci/dittrick/site2 (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
