The demography of ancient Greece has always been a hard subject to study. Although ancient sources provide no reliable statistical data on childbirth, mortality, life expectancy, and other related metrics, we do know quite a bit about practices and issues that affected population levels.

Ancient Greek folklore and imagery glorify the procreative energy of female sexuality. But we also know that under some circumstances, women wanted to avoid pregnancy or dispose of illegitimate, deformed, or sick children.

10 Silphium

There is plenty of recorded evidence that the Greeks were familiar with the contraceptive properties of a small tree known as silphium, which belonged to the Ferula genus. This plant was both discovered and marketed by the Greek colonists in Cyrene, an ancient Greek city on the North African coast near present-day Shahhat, Libya.

All attempts to transplant and cultivate the silphium tree outside Cyrene were unsuccessful. The overexploitation of silphium led to its extinction. By the first century AD, the plant was expensive due to the low supply, and the last historical reference we know is dated to the fourth century AD.

Clinical testing performed with extracts from plants of related species have shown them to be effective contraceptives in animals provided that the extract is administered within three days of mating. This suggests that silphium may have been used as an herbal morning-after pill similar to the morning-after pills marketed today (Wilson 2006: 182).

9 Magical Procedures

In ancient Greece, magical concoctions, spells, amulets, and incantations were believed to aid both reproduction and contraception. For some reason, the testicles of a weasel were believed to act in both directions.

According to an ancient Greek text known as Cyranides (2.7), the right testicle of a weasel “reduced to ashes and mixed in a paste with myrrh” was believed to aid conception when inserted into a woman’s vagina on a small ball of wool before the sexual encounter.

The contraceptive use of weasel testicles employed the left testicle “wrapped in mule skin and attached to the woman.” Since the text does not tell us exactly how the testicles should be attached to the woman, it is not possible to confirm or deny the effectiveness of this procedure (McKeown 2013: 35).

8 Male Contraception

Some ancient sources refer to a plant named periklymenon that was believed to act as a male contraceptive, but all modern attempts to identify it have failed. The renowned Greek physician Galen reported that the chaste tree was used by athletes to prevent erections. There are other references claiming that the leaves of the chaste tree were chewed by priests to decrease sexual desire (Wilson 2006: 182).

Modern testing of chaste tree extract on dogs has shown it to be an effective blocker of sperm production. Coitus interruptus was a known male contraceptive method, but it is unclear to what extent this method was employed judging by the scarce reference to it.

7 Abortion

Abortion was a well-known procedure in ancient Greece. Although the ancient Greeks knew both surgical and chemical procedures to interrupt a pregnancy, literary evidence suggests that surgical methods were discouraged due to the risk posed to the mother.

Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, said in Plato’s Theaetetus (149d), “With the drugs and incantations they administer, midwives can [during an early stage of the pregnancy] cause a miscarriage if they so decide.” Ancient Greek medical literature recorded the names of several plants that were used to terminate early pregnancies including rue, pennyroyal, myrrh, juniper, and birthwort.

Although abortion was considered controversial in some Greek cities, we have no evidence that it was a punishable crime. Ancient Greek medical texts indicate that abortion was often practiced by prostitutes (Wilson 2006: 1).

6 Infanticide

Infanticide was a well-known method of family planning. From a legal standpoint, a child had little protection until the amphidromia was conducted, which was the ceremony where the father named the child.

In general, the child could be killed without any legal trouble or moral controversies at any point before this ceremony took place. Moreover, in some ancient Greek law codes, infanticide was an advisable course of action under specific circumstances.

The term “infant exposure” (putting the infant outside) is used in ancient sources, presumably as a euphemism for infanticide in many cases. The outcome of the abandonment of an infant is either death or adoption by a third party (Hornblower and Spawforth 2012: 735).

Infant exposure is a repetitive theme in ancient lore and legends, and Greece is no exception (e.g. Oedipus, Paris, and Telephus). This literary evidence suggests that infanticide was probably a widespread method of limiting family size, although the exact extent to which it was employed is difficult to assess.

5 Deformed Infants

There is a very specific form of infanticide recorded in ancient Greece that has been strongly connected to Sparta. According to Plutarch (“Life of Lycurgus,” 16), every Spartan newborn had to be brought to the elders for examination:

If [the infant] was well-built and sturdy, they ordered the father to rear it [ . . . ]; but if it was ill-born and deformed, they sent it to the so-called Apothetae, a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taygetus, in the conviction that the life of that which nature had not well equipped at the very beginning for health and strength, was of no advantage either to itself or the state.

The reality is that Spartans were not the only ones concerned with deformed infants. In Book 7 of his work Politics, Aristotle supports infanticide in the case of deformed infants: “As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.”

Even the Romans in the Law of the Twelve Tables (the foundation of Rome’s legal system) contemplated the killing of deformed infants (table 4, 1): “A notably deformed child shall be killed immediately.”

4 Homosexuality

The American scholar William Percy has argued that the encouragement of sexual intercourse between members of the same sex in ancient Greece, particularly the institutionalized Athenian pederasty, was aimed at controlling the population level. An interpretation along the same lines was already expressed by Aristotle (Politics 2.1272a 22–24), who argued that the goal behind the institutionalized pederasty of the Cretan society was to check the demographic growth.

It does not seem possible to confirm whether homosexual practices in ancient Greece were encouraged with the conscious purpose to check demographic growth. But it is reasonable to suppose that as the number of sexual encounters between members of the same sex increases, the frequency of sexual intercourse between members of the opposite sex is likely to be reduced.

Homosexuality might well have had an effect on population control—not as a strategy consciously aimed to check population levels but merely as an inevitable side effect of limiting heterosexual activity (Wilson 2006: 127).

3 Legal Regulations

Several aspects of population control had a legal regulation in ancient Greece. In the city of Gortyn (central Crete), we found detailed information concerning various laws inscribed around 450 BC (Hornblower and Spawforth 2012: 623–735).

The Gortyn law code (3, 43–48) allowed infant exposure in some cases: “If a wife who is separated (by divorce) should bear a child, (they) are to bring it to the husband at his house in the presence of three witnesses; and if he should not receive it, the child should be in the mother’s power either to rear or expose.”

Interestingly, the Gortyn law code (4, 9–13) also contemplated fines if a woman did not comply with this regulation: “If a wife who is separated (by divorce) should expose her child before presenting it as it is written [in this legal code], if she is convicted, she shall pay, for a free child, fifty-staters, for a slave, twenty-five.”

In the city of Thebes, the law did not allow infanticide. However, poor parents were allowed to sell their children.

2 Mortality And Life Expectancy

War was arguably the most important factor for adult male mortality, although maternal, neonatal, and infant mortality were also high. No reliable figures on demographic statistics have survived to our days, but some scholars have come up with different figures. Maternal death estimates range from 5 in 20,000, a truly low and probably unrealistic calculation, to 25 in 1,000. This rate would vary in different places at different times (Hornblower and Spawforth 2014: 161, 617).

Based on forensic anthropology data from Classical Greece cemeteries, infant mortality has been estimated at about 30 percent (Olyntus, northern Greece) assuming that the sample of human remains analyzed is representative of the wider population, which is uncertain.

The ancient Greeks coined the word amphithales (“blooming on both sides”) to refer to a child with both parents still alive. The fact that a special word was employed to refer to this situation suggests that life expectancy was low (McKeown 2013: 16).

1 Miscellaneous Birth Control Methods

Ancient literature records a number of additional contraceptive methods that are hard to classify and of dubious effectiveness. In the first century AD, the Greek physician Dioscorides recommended anointing the male genitals with cedar gum and applying alum to the uterus. Such practice was believed to make the womb unsuitable to host the male seed.

Other methods included the use of a suppository of peppermint and honey before intercourse and a peppery pessary after sexual activity to “dry out” the uterus and make it inhospitable for the fetus.

Preventing and controlling the spread of infectious diseases is one of the arguments for strong government institutions. But this argument is undermined if governments address emerging epidemic diseases in a ham-handed way. Concerns over responsibility and reputation all too often take precedence over the real task of saving human lives.

10MERS In South Korea

After the MERS epidemic began in South Korea in 2015, the Park Geun-hye government was accused of mishandling the crisis and possibly making it worse. Experts heavily criticized the official lack of transparency and the practice of shuttling suspected infectees between hospitals before putting them in quarantine, putting medical staff and the wider public at greater risk. Some criticized the government’s failure to create a centralized facility to concentrate care for infected patients, which would be more efficient and less likely to cause further spread of the disease.

Many were angered by the government’s refusal to name the hospitals treating those affected by the disease, greatly increasing public fears and Internet rumors. This was allegedly done to help hospitals avoid losses in revenue if the public was aware they were treating MERS patients. Instead, people on the Internet made up their own lists, and police arrested several people for falsely identifying specific hospitals as MERS treatment centers.

Firebrand journalist Se-Woong Koo believes the mishandling of MERS is representative of a political system perceived by the public as “a crony capitalist state run by corrupt elites who have monopolized power and the national economy, fostering government incompetence and popular distrust of the state.”

9SARS In China

Mao Zedong once bade “Farewell to the God of Plagues,” but the SARS epidemic in China highlighted serious problems with the way the government handles epidemics. Fears that the outbreak would create a bad image for China led to the government restricting information, which led quickly to public anxiety and rumors. Information controls within the official hierarchy itself caused critical delays.

A key report by a team of experts sent to Guangdong by the Ministry of Health early in the crisis was marked top secret, so it took three days to find a provincial health official with the authorization to read it. After it was finally read, the provincial government released a bulletin of information about the disease to hospitals, but this was read by few because many medical personnel were on vacation for Chinese New Year. Meanwhile, Chinese law prevented any public release of information about the disease, classified as state secrets unless “announced by the Ministry of Health or organs authorized by the Ministry.”

As the epidemic was spreading, Public Health Minister Zhang Wenkang still claimed, “China is a safe place to work and live, including to travel.” The WHO complained of government interference in efforts to control the disease, including preventing Taiwan and the WHO from having direct contact as China claims sovereignty over the country.

As the government played down reports of the disease and doctored statistics, wild rumors spread on the Internet. Some believed the outbreak was bird flu or anthrax. A circular appeared in local media outlining preventative measures, such as improving ventilation, using vinegar fumes to disinfect the air, and frequently washing hands.

The epidemic and botched response had a silver lining of sorts. It underscores the limitations of the Chinese system of “fragmented authoritarianism,” particularly when comparing the Chinese response to the more successful responses in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

8Cholera In Zimbabwe

As political tensions between the ruling ZANU-PF and opposition MDC were leading to violence in the streets, an outbreak of cholera erupted in Zimbabwe in 2008. The government initially tried to downplay the spread of the disease, which Robert Mugabe claimed was a part of a Western plot to invade the country and topple his government in a rambling speech where he called US President Bush and UK Prime Minister Brown “crooks . . . guilty of deliberate lies to commit acts of aggression.”

Hours after South Africa declared the border zone with Zimbabwe a disaster area, Mugabe announced the disease was under control, a claim denied by world health officials who complained the president had prevented a team of French specialists from landing in the country. But the country was soon asking for aid, as its beleaguered and declined healthcare industry simply could not cope. Even health minister David Parirenyatwa eventually admitted, “Our central hospitals are literally not functioning.”

In 2013, it was revealed that attempts to cover up the spread of the disease extended to the United Nations, as country chief Agostinho Zacarias had fired Georges Tadonki, the head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Zimbabwe. Zacarias was closely tied to Mugabe, and Tadonki’s efforts to control the spread of the disease were deemed politically unacceptable to the government.

In a scathing report, a UN tribunal judge later ruled that “the political agenda that RC/HC Zacarias was engaged in with the Government of Zimbabwe far outweighed any humanitarian concerns that (Tadonki’s office) may have had.” In the end, the disease killed more than 4,000 people.

7Nipah Virus In Malaysia

An outbreak of the newly emergent paramyxovirus Nipah in the state of Perak, Malaysia, in September 1998 was initially assumed by the government to be an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis, which is endemic in Malaysia, spread by mosquito, and primarily affects children. The Nipah virus, by contrast, caused severe febrile encephalitis among pig farmers. It had been spread from flying foxes to pigs to humans through bat excretions landing in pig swill, possibly due to the migration of fruit bats to cultivated orchards due to fruiting failure in forests caused by El Nino and human burning efforts.

The Malaysian government’s initial attempts to control what it thought was Japanese encephalitis through fogging and mass vaccination had no effect on the spread of the disease. When cases were reported in abattoirs in Singapore in March 1999, the country banned the import of Malaysian pigs and controlled their small outbreak.

The outbreak of the disease in Malaysia was finally controlled with the culling of over one million pigs, while people were advised to conduct preventative measures such as using protection like masks, hand-washing after handling infected animals and pigsties, and washing down cages and vehicles for transporting animals with soap and water.

The disease wreaked havoc on the billion-dollar Malaysian pig industry, and a group of pig farmers tried to sue the government for their mishandling of the case. The farmers were angry to have engaged in fruitless efforts to control the misidentified virus, which led to more deaths and the destruction of many livelihoods.

6Plague In India

When an outbreak of the plague erupted in the city of Surat in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the response of the government was confused at best. There were mixed signals, with one government press release confirming the plague, while the chief minister of Gujarat denied it and said it must be pneumonia. The mixed signals led to panic among the population.

People wore masks and covered their faces with handkerchiefs in affected areas (which was ineffective at preventing infection), and in larger cities like Mumbai and New Delhi, many schools and public entertainment places were closed as residents chose to stay indoors. People in the neighboring state of Rajasthan killed rats to prevent the spread of the disease (which may have caused affected fleas to jump to new human hosts, spreading the plague further).

The correct diagnosis of the disease was limited by the medical equipment available, and the government tried to initially cover up the outbreak. It would take heavy pressure from nearby trade partners such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to compel them to allow the World Health Organization to render assistance.

Even then, some in the WHO complained of Indian government delays and pointless squabbling over sharing of samples. The WHO intervention was controversial in the national press, and one member of the WHO team complained that the government was encouraging “science by the press.” Some refused to admit the plague originated in India, and rumors spread of genetically engineered bioweapons from hostile South Asian neighbors.

5AIDS In The United States

Some lay the blame for the 1980s AIDS epidemic in the United States squarely with President Ronald Reagan. When the first cases emerged in 1981, it became clear to health authorities that a real crisis situation was developing. But a slow response from the federal government led to delays in vital HIV/AIDS research due to lack of funding and little to no efforts made to develop an outreach program to control or prevent infection.

This is very likely because the initial victims were gay men, who suffered a great deal of hostile attention as the disease spread. Reverend Jerry Falwell said, “AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals,” while Reagan’s communications director Pat Buchanan called the epidemic “nature’s revenge on gay men.”

It took until 1987 before Reagan publicly spoke about the AIDS epidemic, after 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 people had died. In the meantime, discrimination against homosexuals prevented serious work being done. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina amended a federal appropriations bill to prohibit AIDS education programs that “encourage or promote homosexual activity,” to prevent gay men from being taught how to have safe sex.

Some have argued Reagan’s political decisions were rarely influenced by religion and that his silence and inaction were calculated to avoid offending his base, largely made up of conservative Christians who saw the disease as a just punishment for sexual deviants and drug abusers. The cynicism and ignorance ultimately cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.

4BSE In Britain

The epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, began with the death of a single cow in West Sussex. While it first appeared in the 1970s, it had largely gone unnoticed but would eventually jump to humans. Controlling the outbreak involved the culling of millions of livestock, and the disease killed 176 British and 50 others around the world. The outbreak caused severe doubts in the reliability and honesty of UK governments in handling such outbreaks.

At first, the government denied any link between BSE and the human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Agriculture Minister John Gummer criticized schools that had taken beef products from their menus over the rising fears. At a political event in 1990, he tried to prove properly cooked British beef safe by feeding a hamburger to his daughter. She refused, so he took a bite himself and called it “absolutely delicious.”

It took until 1996, after several human cases had already been reported, before the government was willing to admit the danger posed by BSE. A 2000 report lauded government efforts to control the outbreak but admitted denialism and delays hampering the process. Poor communication and foot-dragging by civil servants, bureaucratic hurdles, and poor enforcement also made things worse. One key failure was the 1987 decision not to ban mechanically recovered meat from carcasses, considered risky, which then entered burgers and meat pies.

3Spanish Flu In Samoa

In 1918, Samoa was under the administration of New Zealand, and many blame administrator Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Logan for an outbreak of Spanish flu that killed 22 percent of the population.

The disease was brought aboard New Zealand passenger and cargo ship Talune arriving at Apia from Auckland on November 7, 1918. The ship had been quarantined when making a stopover in Fiji, but no precautions were made in Samoa. Sick passengers disembarked, and the disease was soon spreading throughout the main island of Upolu and to the neighboring island of Savai’i, overwhelming Samoa’s rudimentary medical facilities.

The governor of American Samoa offered assistance, as he had a staff of medical officers and assistants at the ready having recently controlled their own outbreak. Logan ignored the message, later claiming he assumed it was referring to his wife. He also broke off radio communication with the American Samoan capital of Pago Pago, apparently in revenge for a policy of quarantining Western Samoan mail. Samoa therefore received no medical assistance until an Australian ship arrived carrying four doctors and 20 medical orderlies.

Logan was inexperienced with administration and believed he needed to wait for instructions from Wellington before doing anything, so little was done to curb the epidemic. Plantation interests opposed a quarantine, and so much of the population was soon sick that there were food shortages. Many became more sick as they were weak from a lack of food.

A 1947 United Nations report would call it “one of the most disastrous epidemics recorded anywhere in the world during the present century, so far as the proportion of deaths to the population is concerned.” Logan left Samoa in early 1919, writing of the crisis in a report: “[It is] temporary and, like children, [the Samoans] will get over it provided they are handled with care . . . They will later on remember all that has been done for them in the previous four years.”

2Meningitis In Zambia

After an outbreak of meningococcal meningitis at Kabompo Secondary School in North-Western Province, Zambia, in June 2015, three students died and another three were admitted into the hospital. The slow reaction by the government to spread accurate information led to hysteria, as some students claimed the disease was caused by witchcraft. In a riot involving students and members of the local community on July 4, school property was damaged, and parents withdrew their children, who were claiming the school needed to be “cleansed.”

Conflicting statements from the Ministries of Health and Education soon suggested miscommunication was a factor in the chaos. On July 8, Health Minister Joseph Kasonde told reporters the school had been closed for two weeks, but Ministry of Education spokesperson Hillary Chipango said the school hadn’t been closed, merely that students were refusing to attend.

Critics of the government have blamed the lack of communication and coordination between the Ministries for the lack of accurate information about the disease, which can be treated with antibiotics and easily prevented. The information could have helped to prevent the spread of witchcraft rumors.

1AIDS In South Africa

South Africa had spent 15 years steadily fighting the spread of HIV, until the election of Thabo Mbeki. The new president had fallen under the sway of a group of scientific rebels led by Berkeley’s Peter Duesberg who deny that AIDS is caused by the AIDS virus and instead blame pathogenic factors such as drug use, promiscuous homosexual activity, blood transfusions, parasitic infections, and malnutrition.

Though their claims went against the vast weight of scientific evidence, Mbeki was convinced. Part of it may have been the cost of drug treatments, and AIDS denialism put pressure on international drug makers to lower their prices to be more affordable to ordinary Africans. Part of it was due to him believing the claims HIV was sexually transmitted was only a representation of traditional racist ideas about Africans being promiscuous.

The disease wasn’t caused by a virus, he believed, but general ill health and malnutrition. The solution wasn’t simply buying medicine from the West but improving the African standard of living.

Mbeki appointed a group of scientists who declared there were alternative treatments to combat AIDS. Until late 2003, the Ministry of Health refused to provide treatment to HIV-infected individuals. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang declared in 2006 that AIDS could be cured by eating healthy foods like olive oil, beetroot, lemon, and garlic. She even presented a South African government display of fruits and vegetables at a Toronto AIDS conference. The following year, deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was dismissed, ostensibly for corruption but in reality likely due to her outspoken views on the relationship between HIV and AIDS.

South Africa ended its official culture of denialism with the election of Jacob Zuma in 2009. A Harvard study found that Mbeki’s belief in quack science likely led to the deaths of over 300,000 people.

David Tormsen is your own personal patient zero. Email him at [email protected].

Clearly, the population boom of 4.5 billion people was the wake-up call that the global community needed. After decade-long “baby booms” in which having a large family was seen as one of the ultimate signs of success, people began to realize in the 1990s that this rapid population growth might become a problem.

By the end of the 20th century, the world population had reached a whopping 6.1 billion, a far cry from the 1.6 billion people who inhabited the Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. Fears spread about a population too large to be sustained, leading countries to rethink antiabortion laws and drastically reduce the price of contraceptives.

Although this tactic worked for countries like the United Kingdom, some nations utterly failed to control their exponentially rising birthrates. Still others succeeded far too well.

Whether population growth or decline is the problem, countries have tried some pretty odd things to control birthrates. But these 10 ways are among the absolute strangest.

10 ‘Do It For Denmark’ Campaign

With a 0.4 percent population growth rate and a birthrate of 1.73 children per woman, Denmark’s population was in some serious trouble back in 2014 (and still is). With a rapidly aging population and a birthrate that wasn’t high enough to replace the current population, Denmark was spiraling uncontrollably toward a population decline and a labor crisis—something that terrifies all governments. But perhaps even more concerned than the government was Danish travel agency Spies Rejser, which claimed that a declining Danish population would mean fewer Danish travelers and thus, less business for them.

But the creative employees at Spies Rejser weren’t content to just sit around and worry. Instead, the company released a surprisingly bold, somewhat scandalous commercial campaign aimed at adults, with the goal to get couples to have more children. It even had a catchy slogan: “Do it for Denmark!”

The bold commercial started out by asking a shocking question—“Can sex save Denmark’s future?”—before letting a picture of a solemn elderly couple fill the screen, describing Denmark’s population problem, and sharing a video clip of a young adult girl visiting the hotel in which she was conceived.

As viewers watched a young woman try on lingerie and then gallavant with her boyfriend around Paris, the voice of the commercial stated that Danes have 46 percent more sex when on vacation, leading to 10 percent of all Danish babies being conceived during a holiday. Near the end of the video, Danes were encouraged to take a romantic vacation and, to sweeten the deal, use the “ovulation discount” when booking through Spies Rejser to “get it on.”

If you could prove that you conceived a child while on vacation, Spies promised to reward parents with three years of baby supplies and a kid-friendly vacation. It was a hard offer to pass up, the commercial pushed, especially when “all the fun is in the participation.”

9 Hate Taxes? Have A Baby In Romania!

Facing population growth that was close to zero in the late 1960s, Romania banned abortion and contraceptives, made divorce almost impossible, and began imposing a tax burden on childless families. Married or single, childless men and women over age 25 were subject to increased taxes that could amount to 20 percent of their total income.

Police were stationed in hospitals to ensure that no abortions took place, and women were even subjected to monthly gynecological exams to detect and preserve pregnancies. At the same time, childless couples over age 25 were interrogated about their sex lives.

On the other hand, Romania offered “family allowances” paid by the state, which increased each time a child was born. Families with more than three children had their income taxes slashed by 30 percent. The campaign proved to be disastrous, resulting in hundreds of thousands of children being abandoned at birth and put into orphanages.

8 Have A Kid, Be A Heroine

Convinced that the way to become a world superpower was to boast a humongous workforce, Soviet Russia took to branding mothers as heroines to incite a baby boom. Mothers who bore and raised at least five children were given the honorable title of “Mother Heroine” and awarded the Soviet Motherhood Medal, established in 1944.

A Second Class Medal was awarded to mothers who bore five children, provided that the youngest child reached one year old and all the others were still alive. Approximately eight million of these brass medals were issued, double that of the silver First Class Medal, which was awarded to the heroine who birthed six or more children and brought them up. Though medals were highly coveted during the 20th century, you can buy them for cheap now on eBay if you so desire.

7 Sex Breaks In South Korea

After the birthrate in South Korea plummeted to one of the lowest in the developed world, around 1.2 children per woman, the government took it upon itself to get people interested in becoming parents again by introducing “Family Day.” On the third Wednesday of every month, government offices now close early at 7:00 PM, encouraging their employees to go home and spend quality time with their families—and make bigger ones.

South Korean officials hoped that the reduced workday would “help staff get dedicated to childbirth and upbringing.” Unfortunately, the country didn’t see any noticeable increase in births accredited to ‘Family Day.” But when your birthrate is lower than the elderly nation that is Japan, every little bit helps.

6 Sterilization ‘Camps’ In India

Considered by some as the darkest time in India’s history, 1975 saw the suspension of democratic rights and violations of human dignity by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who instituted a 21-month mass sterilization program. Although democratic rights have been restored, sterilization continues to be India’s biggest weapon to combat rapid population growth.

Women are persuaded to be voluntarily sterilized through cash rewards. Those who don’t accept the money are forcibly sterilized. Other consequences are also meted out by the government for having a large family, such as being prevented from owning a gun or holding public office.

Sterilization “camps” are among the most controversial practices. In one camp at an abandoned hospital in a rural part of India, 83 women were sterilized in five hours by a single doctor who was said to have dipped his equipment only briefly in disinfectant.

5 Mentos: Working To Increase Birthrates

Panicking over a birthrate that was less than one child per woman, the government of Singapore partnered with Mentos in 2012 to create the “National Night” campaign in which a three-minute Mentos commercial encouraged babymaking through a rap about “doing your civic duty.”

The video started out with a rap about not watching fireworks and “[making] ’em instead.” Then it moved on to the chorus in which a singer croons that it’s “National Night,” encouraging viewers with words like “let’s make Singapore’s birthrate spike.” The video ends with couples being encouraged to “get your National Night on” and let their “patriotism explode.”

Whether it worked has yet to be determined. But one thing is sure: Singapore is the first (and probably only) country to associate mints with sex.

4 Robot Babies In Japan

Apparently, the one demographer who claimed that the Japanese would be extinct in 1,000 years got to the Japanese government. After a period of ignoring what was obviously a growing population crisis, Japanese officials are finally working to increase the birthrate—and they are doing so through robot babies.

Japanese students at the University of Tsukuba created a robot baby who sniffles, cries, giggles, and sneezes just like a human baby. Adults are encouraged to view and play with the robot baby. The ultimate goal is to spark a yearning for this kind of interaction with a real baby in the viewer’s own life, providing the motivation that the Japanese need to conceive.

3 Secretly Sterilizing Women In Uzbekistan

Despite the culture of Uzbekistan, which views having a large family as the definition of success, the government seems to be concerned with the 2.53 births per woman. So concerned, in fact, that the government ran a secret campaign to sterilize women without their knowledge or consent.

From 2010–2012, women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent in the hospital or doctor’s office after having their second child. Anonymous testimonies from patients and doctors have been collected, revealing that doctors are given quotas on how many women to sterilize each month. The pressure to sterilize girls is especially high in rural areas, where doctors are forced to sterilize up to eight girls per week.

2 Lebensborn In Nazi Germany

Although Nazi propaganda encouraging German mothers to bear as many children as possible to provide for the German army is relatively well-known, a more secret program was uncovered in the 21st century. Called Lebensborn, the program aimed to enlarge and perpetuate Aryan characteristics and the Aryan race.

Pregnant women secretly gave birth in clinics scattered about Germany and were cared for by doctors and nurses as long as they possessed the Aryan physicality of light hair and eyes. The goal of the program was to “further the Aryan race [by] whatever means were available,” a source reported.

1 Need A New Car? Pregnancy Will Take Care Of That!

Though the Soviet era in Russia spiked the birthrate, the deplorable conditions of Soviet Russia raised the death rate to an equally high level, leaving the country with a miniscule population of youth after the Soviet collapse in the late 20th century. Determined to increase their population of young people, the Russian government declared in 2007 that September 12 would be the National Day of Conception.

The national holiday, which gives couples the day off work, was created in hopes that couples would use their free time to breed (also known as “doing their civic duty”). To up the ante, women who conceived on September 12 and gave birth on June 12 (Russia Day) were eligible to win money, cars, or appliances like a new refrigerator.

In 2007, the holiday proved successful as the birthrate of the Russian region increased by 4.5 percent. After all, who would pass up the chance for a free car?

High school student Aria doubles as a freelance writer and babysitter to pay for her ambitious travel plans and (hopefully) college tuition.

Humanity has all kinds of noble qualities. We’ve created art and music, we’ve unraveled mathematical mysteries, we invented tacos. There’s a lot to be proud of. By the same token, we fumble the ball in a lot of ways, too, none more egregious than with our more violent, xenophobic and territorial tendencies. On a mass scale, these lead to war and great suffering. But on a smaller scale they can lead to much more focused and bizarre conflicts in the form of turf wars.

10. South Africa’s Taxi Turf Wars Have Claimed Hundreds of Lives

Cab drivers have a less than stellar reputation pretty much everywhere on earth even though it’s probably just a minority who stand out as rude or deceptive or downright dangerous with their customers. But things get uglier when a place gets big enough to have competition between cabbies.

In South Africa, like anywhere, cab companies have a finite customer base. They want to hold those customers, and their money, as tight as they can. But if another cab company shows up, all those customers and their money might be seduced away. That’s how a turf war starts except that the South African one has been going for decades and people have died because of it.

In 2018, a minibus full of cab drivers was returning from the funeral of a colleague when a gunman opened fire, killing all 11 passengers. By July 2021, 83 people had been killed in Cape Town, including passengers. These were just some victims in a war that has killed hundreds. Between 2000 and 2017, 43% of assassinations in South Africa were related to the taxi industry. That was far more than politically motivated hits or organized crime related murders which both accounted for 22%.

The South African cab business is huge. Annual revenue is around $1.2 billion and 15 million people per day use cabs. Long commuter trips between cities are common and this, along with permit disputes, are what the turf wars focus on and have focused on since the 1990s.

9. Glasgow Had A Deadly Ice Cream Truck War

Like taxis, ice cream trucks are vehicles that offer a service to customers for money. Unlike taxis, these cater mostly to children or families and are, arguably, wholesome and fun. That’s the theory, anyway. In Glasgow, things worked differently in the 1980s.

Despite the name, the ice cream trucks in Glasgow were like mobile markets. They sold groceries and other essential items in neighborhoods that were too far from grocery stores for many residents to reach easily. You might call them food deserts, today. Notably they went to a neighborhood called Ruchazie which was built in the ’50s but had fallen into a state of poverty and unemployment.

There were huge profits to be made if your truck got there first to sell to residents. That made drivers territorial. While some vendors might have been on the up and up, organized crime had run trucks as well.

In an attempt to intimidate a rival driver, some unknown assailants shot at him in his truck. He escaped unharmed and later they set his house on fire. The house was full of people including an 18-month-old baby. Six people, including the child, died.

Arrests were made but appeals went on for years based on very shady police work including at least one cop signing off on a confession he got when it was later revealed he was driving somewhere in his car at the time the confession was given. Twenty years passed with legal challenges and evidence showing cops conspired to frame suspects, leaving the case unsolvable after so much time.

8. Manuka Honey Is at the Center of a Honey Turf War in New Zealand

Honey is one of those things that, like olive oil or vinegar, can get very expensive if it’s artisanal or from some rare and fancy source. Manuka honey, in particular, fits the bill here. It’s originally made in New Zealand with nectar from the manuka tree. Back in 2016, 250 grams of it would cost about $30 USD and the price has only gone up since. 

Since manuka took off as a so-called superfood, it’s been highly in demand and this has led to honey turf wars. As the market exploded and prices rose, producers of the honey endured hive thefts and vandalism. Bees were poisoned and in one case 300 hives comprising tens of thousands of bees were killed in New Zealand.

A big part of the issue is between New Zealand producers and Australian ones. They fight over the name and who has the right to use it because, in the marketplace, the value is all in the name manuka. Like Champagne, if one person owns the rights, the copycats have to come up with a new term. But even within New Zealand, as more and more apiaries open to compete over limited resources, the vandalism and even physical beatings continue to try to get as big a piece of the pie as possible.

7. Kennedy Fried Chicken Restaurants Are Constantly at War By Independent Owners

Have you ever enjoyed some KFC? Not Kentucky Fried Chicken, everyone knows that place. Kennedy Fried Chicken. It’s a New York chicken franchise (sort of) in which none of the different Kennedy Fried Chicken restaurants actually have anything to do with one another beyond ripping each other off.

Kennedy, along with others like Crown Fried Chicken and Royal Fried Chicken all have nearly identical menus and the restaurants mostly look the same. Nearly all are independently owned. Abdul Haye owns the trademark to Kennedy, but he didn’t even create it. He worked at one once then opened his own and tried to stake his claim. 

Despite not creating the restaurant himself, Haye threatened to sue everyone else running a Kennedy of which there are over 300 and not one of them is related to another. All seem to be run by Afghani immigrants, which is true of Haye and also the man he once worked for who started the first Kennedy.

Starting your own Kennedy is something of a tradition for many Afghan immigrants so they were defiant in the face of a potential lawsuit. This may be because they already sort of triumphed over the true KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken pursued legal action against the restaurants back in the day but none paid attention and when KFC went straight to the initials, they lost their footing to dispute with Kennedy. 

6. New York Has Soft Serve Ice Cream Wars

We already saw that Glasgow had ice cream wars but so did New York and these ones were literally over ice cream. Soft serve trucks from Mister Softee and the New York Ice Cream Company regularly square off in the summer months in a feud that dates back to 2013 when New York Ice Cream Company was founded by a former Mister Softee employee.

Mister Softee has gone all out to spy on their rival, even hiring private investigators to make sure they’re not stealing Softee’s jingle or swirly mascot. And while that seems like maybe a little paranoid overkill, it’s not. NYICC has been pulling out all the stops, and even pulling out baseball bats on their rivals.

NYICC was started specifically to compete with Mister Softee and their trucks used the same colors to start and used the name Master Softee, which got them sued. Master Softee got banned. A year later they came back as New York Ice Cream Company and started getting intimidating and even violent with the competition. NYICC lost another suit, was banned from parts of midtown and had to stop using the jingle. But the ban ended in 2017 and the rivalry sparked up once more.

5. London Has Gang-Run Hot Dog Wars

London, England is not so different from New York when it comes to food rivals. Hot dog carts in the capital are sometimes operated by gangs and they don’t take kindly to competition. Back in the 90s this peaked with incidents involving Albanian hot dog vendors pulling out machetes but it’s still an ongoing issue.

Many vendors work for a shady boss who takes a massive cut in exchange for the cart and supplies. Sellers are also tightly restricted geographically, with city licensing workers patrolling the streets all night just waiting for a vendor to cross to an illegal corner so their cart can be seized. 

When rival sellers get too close, they can break down into violent attacks, wielding iron bars or sticks. In most cases it’s immigrants, like the Albanians, working for established criminal organizations. Because many are not legally able to work in England, they take up shady hot dog business. Even legit sellers might have to pay protection money to gangs.

4. Chicago Newspapers Went Through Bloody Circulation Wars in the 1900s

Turf wars are not modern, Chicago was in the middle of a newspaper war started by William Randolph Hearst back in the early 1900s. He published a paper called the Chicago American and had designs on crushing the Tribune and the Record-Herald.

Heart employed honest to goodness thugs – “prizefighters, bouncers, muggers and other street athletes,” and armed them with weapons like guns and brass knuckles. Their job was to find the people who distributed the rival papers and “convince” them to make room for Hearst’s paper. This led to more than one fist fight and even shootout at Chicago newsstands. 

The rival papers responded with the exact same tactics and soon newspaper trucks were being driven into rivers. The feud went on for years.

3. Vegas Wedding Chapels Have Had Violent Confrontations Over Customers

The Las Vegas wedding chapel is an iconic Vegas experience, second only to the casinos themselves. The idea of a quickie in-and-out wedding has a lot of appeal for those seeking the full, seedy Vegas experience. But, as with all things Vegas, there’s money to be made and lost and that leads to rivalry.

In the early 2000s, Lily of the Valley ministries had to request an order of protection from the Garden of Love chapel because of threats and harassment directed at employees and customers. The Garden of Love is one of the most famous chapels in Vegas. 

Two years earlier, there were death threats and vandalism running rampant. Owners of one chapel might curse out couples who chose another chapel and people’s cars were being pelted with paintballs. At the center of those accusations was, once again, the Garden of Love. 

2. Chinatown Bus Rivalries Led to Drive Bys and Stabbings

The last thing anyone wants to experience on a bus ride is a drive-by, but that’s how bad things got in the early 2000s when competition between Chinatown bus companies offering curbside service up and down the East Coast got ugly.

The first company started offering $25 trips to Boston but competition horned in and prices dropped in an effort to entice customers. Some offered fares as low as $10 which led to fist fights between rival employees.

In 2003, one driver left his employer to form his own company and was later gunned down in the street. Later this escalated to arsons, a stabbing and more shootings. 

1. Canada Has a Massive Tow Truck Turf War Problem

Despite their reputation as being polite, Canadians are far from immune to angry turf wars as well. Canada’s disputes exist in the world of tow trucks, complete with ties to organized crime and murder. In 2020, Toronto police laid 200 charges in response to a long-standing war between rival companies. Not that anything stopped because of it.

The wars date back to the early 2000s and have decayed to not just unauthorized tows but extreme violence including arson, drugs, weapons and multiple killings. And cops are partially to blame.

With little regulation in the business, police often call a tow truck on a first come first serve basis for accidents. That means rivals can literally race to get a call and tow a wreck. Because they use police scanners, trucks can sometimes even beat police to the scene of an accident and tow it before cops arrive.

Police have been charged with extortion and bribery as well, getting involved and what is a lucrative industry that involves kickbacks from auto repair shops and others, all at the expense of drivers.

Parasites and pathogens are pretty terrifying things. Immune systems serve to mount a defense against these elusive little creatures. This is, in fact, how sexes came to be, as a means to mix the genes necessary to stir up the genetic pot, creating more stout and powerful immune systems as various microscopic invaders adapted to override the host’s bodily defenses.^[1]

This evolutionary arms race has been a battle between predators and prey of all sizes and on all scales to come up with the most effective way to survive and procreate. Whenever one side gets stronger, the other adapts and comes up with a new, clever way to beguile its foe and succeeds for a while—until it’s inevitably outdone again. This has also happened with many plagues, like the bubonic plague, throughout the long path of history.

These days, parasites and pathogens have developed some pretty interesting ways to procreate and/or move on to the next stage of their life cycle—including hijacking the minds of their hosts. These bodily invaders control their hosts’ behavior, forcing them subtly into actions which will result in an opportunity for them to spread or reproduce. Here are ten parasites and pathogens which control the minds of humans.

10 Trypanosoma Brucei

Trypanosoma brucei is a species of protozoa. It is a blood parasite that infects a slew of animals and occasionally humans, too. Its life cycle is rather long, starting off in tsetse flies, which bite humans. Then it enters into the human’s lymphatic system, and from there, it transfers into the bloodstream.

An infection from this parasite can cause sleeping sickness, which can harm both animals and people and comes in two separate stages of symptoms. The early onset of the infection comes on like many other diseases, with joint pain, muscle pain, fever, and swollen lymph nodes, while the second stage causes behavioral changes and extreme lethargy as the parasite begins to attack the spine and brain. Ultimately, T. brucei can kill you.

It should be noted here that the goal of many of these bloodstream parasites seems to be to render its host compromised without killing it. A dead host isn’t as likely to spread the parasite and help complete the life cycle, so rather than killing indiscriminately, it’s advantageous for a parasite to simply weaken its host, making it the potential prey of other animals which are necessary for the parasite to reproduce.^[2]

9 Intestinal Bacteria

Yes, the very same intestinal bacteria that you’ve likely had your entire life and have almost never even thought about is capable of causing some pretty unusual changes in your mental state. Furthermore, these bacteria can play a pretty vital roll in very human problems, such as depression and anxiety, it seems.^[3] Science has long noted the link between microbiota, the bacteria living in the gut, and animal behavior, mainly in rodents and chimpanzees.

But recent human studies have divided people into distinct groups based on the presence of different bacteria in their guts in starkly different amounts to determine the potential impact of intestinal bacteria on human mood. They monitored the subjects with fMRI machines as well as other equipment to record the responses of their brains to imagery. One group had more Bacteroides, while the other group had more Prevotella, two genera of bacteria that live in the intestines of humans and are thought to alter mood.

When showed images of emotionally charged material, the brains of those in the Prevotella group lit up, indicating that they were responding more intensely. Beyond this, the Prevotella group presented more anxiety and depression, as well as other negative emotions. While this work is far from definitive, it’s extremely safe to assume that, like our primate relatives, gut bacteria plays a roll in the regulation of the moods of humans as well.

8 Toxoplasma Gondii

Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite which causes the disease known as toxoplasmosis, passes through both humans and cats. Beyond being just troublesome, especially in small children, it can also control the minds of the organisms it inhabits. Toxoplasmosis can do some serious damage to those with compromised immune systems, such as the elderly, HIV patients, and those with other diseases which cause one to become immunocompromised. Even though the parasite is only believed to reproduce when it’s inside cats, it still manages to make its way into humans through the feces of cats (when handled) as well as when it infects other animals that we consume.

This parasite affects the behavior of rats, mice, and other rodents. Seeing as they only reproduce inside the bellies of cats, they hijack the minds of the rodents, which are commonly prey for cats, and give these animals a sense of fearlessness, making them unafraid of their cat predators.

But research shows that this parasite also affects the behavior of humans as well. Studies suggest that it promotes risky behaviors in people, much like the rodents, and causes other marked behavioral changes. Not only are people infected with the parasite willing to take on more risky life ventures, but experiments have shown that they are even more willing to drink a surprise, mystery fluid when presented it by scientists, without being told what it is, and are generally willing to commit themselves to other unusual, risky behaviors. It seems that the natural human skepticism is reduced in those whom Toxoplasma gondii calls home.^[4]

7 More Intestinal Microflora

Yet again, we find that microorganisms in the gut can control the minds of their host humans. This time, it’s not the mood that these life-forms can affect or modulate but cravings. For instance, some people love chocolate, while others are more indifferent. The latter can actually have gut bacteria which are sort of “immune” to chocolate—that is, the microbes don’t like it very much, and thus, they don’t cause the cravings. These bacteria can have some pretty far-reaching effects: Studies have shown that, all things being equal, obese people have gut bacteria that are different and distinct from people of a more moderate weight.

Sugar cravings, in a way, actually feed themselves by feeding the organisms that cause them. Candida is a type of yeast that grows in the gut and particularly loves to feed on the sugars that we take in.^[5] When these little fungi grow too much, they emit chemicals which are likely to cause the person to crave more sugar, thus continuing the cycle of the microflora themselves. In a weird way, they hijack your mind to give you sugar cravings because they’re having sugar cravings, and they have evolved to emit chemicals which cause you to have the same sugar cravings that they do—so you’ll feed them.

6 Strep Throat

Strep throat, or rather the bacteria that cause it, can lead to some pretty unusual and sometimes lasting behavioral changes in people, especially children. Over the years, science has begun to tie together the link between strep throat and ongoing behaviors that sometimes, in some rare cases, seem to last. In most people, antibiotics or the immune system simply clear strep throat, and they go on with their lives, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, children suffer from nervous tics and even full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder after the pathogen takes hold of them.

This condition is known as PANDAS, short for pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infection. It can present as some pretty severe anxiety and other mood disturbances, like separation anxiety or a massive fear of bugs or germs. While OCD and other disorders tend to develop over time, PANDAS comes on seemingly overnight and strikes without warning. This leads researchers and doctors to believe it has something to do with strep throat controlling and affecting the mind of its host.^[6]

5 Rabies

When people think of a disease that alters the minds of animals and people, usually rabies comes to mind, if not Toxoplasma gondii. Rabies is a virus that affects the brain and spine, thus dealing some pretty hefty damage to its host organism before almost always killing it.^[7] Rabies lives in the saliva of infected humans and animals, which then transmits to other hosts when one bites the other.

Humans who are bitten go through some interesting behavioral changes which help the virus reproduce, just like what happens with other animals. Organisms carrying the rabies virus tend to become hyperaggressive and agitated, and most mammals become more brazen and willing to bite, even becoming unusually brave to do so. Humans can suffer delirium and hallucinations as well as flu-like symptoms at first. But when the disease takes hold, the virus is almost always fatal, with fewer than ten people reported surviving the clinical stage of rabies in the United States—ever.

Even more bizarre is that the rabies virus causes hydrophobia, an extreme fear of water. Seeing as rabies lives in the saliva of the infected, this makes complete sense—hosts which are afraid of water won’t wash the virus out of their mouths, making it more capable of transmission and reproduction. The evolutionary arms race at work.

4 Naegleria Fowleri

Naegleria fowleri is a terrifying little critter, an amoeba that goes straight for the brain upon its infection of its host. It is also known as the brain-eating amoeba, and it feasts on bacteria. Even scarier, it lives in water and can travel up through the nose and into the brain, where it does its damage, usually ultimately killing a person. A simple trip to the lake or even contact with water from around your dwelling can expose you to this parasite.

The initial symptoms of this tiny beast begin anywhere between one and nine days after exposure, usually starting at about five days, and can include headache, nausea, vomiting, and basic flu-like symptoms at first. But then in can develop into a lack of attention to people and surroundings, as well as vertigo or loss of balance, hallucinations, and eventually death.^[8]

3 Malaria

One of the most brutal and unforgiving diseases of all time, malaria also has one of the most interesting life cycles. Malaria is transmitted largely through mosquito bites. When a female mosquito bites a person carrying malaria, they get it, and then they go bite someone else and spread it to them. Pretty simple. See, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, two of the five species of Plasmodium which cause malaria in humans, spend part of their life cycle in humans and the other part in mosquitoes, making it essential for the organism to transmit to both mosquitoes and humans.

But where this process gets interesting is the cravings that malaria can cause in its host organisms. Malaria also relies heavily on sugar, the main substance of the mosquito diet, to complete its life cycle, and mosquitoes actually bite you to obtain your blood’s sugar. The parasites themselves are also evidenced to survive on sugar in each organism, both the mosquito and the human being. Aside from human blood, mosquitoes live largely on nectar and other plant sugars found in the wild to survive.^[9]

Malaria has been demonstrated to not only make mosquitoes more hungry, giving them a case of the mosquito munchies, but also give the mosquitoes cravings during various periods of the incubation of the malaria parasites. During the period where the parasite needs to be inside the mosquito, the mosquito will crave the sweet scent of plant nectar, and thus the parasite remains. When it comes time to be transmitted into a human, the mosquito begins to crave human blood and then feasts on a person to aide in the life cycle of the zombie parasite. But that’s not all. Malaria in humans eats up the sugar and hormones in the blood pretty quickly, which can lead to low blood sugar, but it also leads to anemia and vitamin deficiency. And guess what those vitamin deficiencies and anemia cause in humans—sugar cravings.

Malaria controls the mosquito when in the mosquito, giving it cravings for its plant food while the parasite incubates and then making it crave blood when it’s time to travel into a human. From there, malaria eats the sugar in the blood but also causes anemia and vitamin deficiencies, which will cause sugar cravings, which will lead to the human boosting blood sugar levels so that the malaria can get back into the mosquitoes again.

2 Chlorovirus ATCV-1

This nasty little virus has long been known to affect the behavior patterns of mice, causing some pretty severe cognitive deficiencies in them, and it is also known to infect humans. There is a lengthy process by which this virus makes a slew of chemical changes which affect the behavior of its host organisms, but in short, it makes people dumb. Yes, it’s a stupid virus.^[10]

Chlorovirus ATCV-1 significantly impairs the cognitive abilities of humans who are infected with it, and if that wasn’t scary enough of an idea, this virus can live inside you for years. Beyond that, there was a small study on the virus in the United States, which concluded that 44 percent of the participants, in fact, had the virus, which typically lives in algae but tends to reside in the throat in humans. So there actually is a stupid virus. Who would have thought?

1 Influenza

Science is learning new things every day about human behavior, and in today’s world of vaccines, how humans respond to them is no exception. It’s coming to light that flu vaccines actually increase the likelihood of humans becoming social—that is, the flu vaccine makes humans more interested in socializing. Even more interesting than this, studies have noted that the flu spreads through our social networks (the real-life ones, not the online ones) and varies depending on which network you’re exposed to. Who you hang out with might be a determining factor in whether or not you’ll catch one of the most devastating diseases in world history.

But beyond just the vaccine, the influenza virus also hijacks the mind of its host subtly, which is likely why people who’ve just received the vaccine demonstrate the same phenomenon. The flu itself makes people want to be more social, which makes perfect sense, as a socially outgoing host is a perfect way for the virus to spread to other people.^[11] While the mechanisms aren’t quite clear yet, we do know that people with the flu become more interested in seeking out and engaging with other people, and considering how often parasites and pathogens control the minds of their hosts, its quite probable that we’ll learn the mechanism through which the flu makes us want to fraternize so that it can come out to play.

The idea of using contraceptives is as old as time. Due to the advanced medicine of today, we have many forms available to suit anyone’s needs, but this wasn’t always the case. From stealthy pessaries to handcrafted condoms, the birth control devices of old range from ineffective to bizarre.

The first birth control clinic in the US was opened in 1916 in New York City by Margaret Sanger, an advocate for the right to contraceptive use.^[1] The approval of such offices appears to have been controversial even back then, as the first one had a difficult time finding doctors and was quickly shut down after its initial opening. Still, professionals carried on with their work in the pursuit to find and refine contraceptive methods. Their efforts have transformed into the popular techniques we now use today.

While it is difficult to find surviving contraceptive devices of old due to most of the materials being small and made of biodegradable substances, a glance at record books and historical populations gives hints to the fact that some form or other of birth control was most likely in use among different cultures throughout the course of history.

10 Breastfeeding

It is common knowledge that ovulating women can get pregnant unless they are using some form of contraceptive. This cycle can be affected by stress, fluctuating hormones, poor diet choices, and other medical conditions, though. When women do not menstruate for three months or more, it is then considered abnormal and called amenorrhea. The state when a monthly cycle is interrupted is not always a cause for concern and can even occur naturally.

One natural event that results in a woman not ovulating is pregnancy. A lesser-known fact is that if a woman nurses a young baby of fewer than six months old, there is a reaction within the brain from the suckling process that can stop her body from releasing an egg. The process ensures she is not able to become pregnant while still caring for a newborn. To take advantage of this natural period of infertility and utilize it as a form of birth control, a woman can continue to breastfeed her baby at regular intervals using the Lactation Amenorrhea Method, or LAM.

In ancient times, LAM was not only well-known but commonly practiced. Purposefully or not, a woman would sometimes maintain the breastfeeding cycle for up to three years to keep from becoming pregnant. The natural use of this technique particularly kept nomadic families to relatively small sizes, making it easier to maintain their roaming lifestyle.^[2]

9 Animal Intestines And Fish Membranes

The use of condoms is not new, though it is difficult to nail down exactly when they first became popular because the materials used were biodegradable and often did not survive the wear of time. It was realized early on, though, that a protective covering could help prevent pregnancy, and over the years, multiple forms were tested. Animal materials won the prize and were widely regarded as the most effective and readily available. Interestingly enough, though, the condom was used more frequently to protect against venereal diseases instead of pregnancy, as conditions such as syphilis were common and widespread. A well known tenth-century Persian physician, Al-Akhawayni Bukhari, would even recommend a gallbladder to his patients as protection against illness.

When the use of condoms became more popular, pharmacies began to regularly stock certain brands and styles. One of the common brands was the “goldbeater.” Made of animal intestines, the thin material was originally developed for use in processing gold leaf, hence its given name. However, the finely pounded skin was also found to be perfect for use as a condom because it was reasonably waterproof and flexible and had great durability.

While all of these materials worked well and were readily accessible, a fish membrane, specifically the swim bladder, became the condom of choice for its superior quality and protection against pregnancy and syphilis.^[3]

8 Silphium And Related Flora

Silphium is a now-extinct plant due to its popular use as a natural contraceptive in the ancient world. Thought to be related to the fennel family, the plant grew in the area of what is now modern-day Libya and was cultivated for its resin. Because of its extreme effectiveness and desirability, images of the flora even appeared on the currency of the civilization where it was most popular.

Unfortunately, the plant was quickly used up, and the exact family to which silphium belonged is still uncertain, though it has been speculated to perhaps still be in existence as a misidentified flower. Interestingly, the seed of the silphium plant is depicted as being heart-shaped, leading a few to believe that the plant may have become the modern-day symbol of love.^[4]

Another couple of plants known to cause abortions and infertility are pennyroyal and Queen Anne’s lace. The oil and seeds of these weeds are used in some medicines, cooking applications, and herbal remedies. The danger in the use of pennyroyal, though, is that the amount needed to cause an abortion can also cause kidney and liver damage. Queen Anne’s lace is a little bit safer if you know what you’re doing but is also technically classified as a poisonous plant.

Another problem with these supplements is that they can easily be confused with different and more deadly versions. Despite the foreboding issues, both types are still used by herbalists and in poor communities.

7 Lysol Douches

A douche is known today as a feminine hygiene product, but it was also widely thought to be usable as a method of contraception when first introduced. As a douche is used to “wash out” the inside of the vagina, the idea was that sperm, too, would be rinsed out after coition. In fact, the idea is completely backward and could actually help push material up into the uterus and assist with pregnancy.

Another issue with douching as a method of contraception is that the water used inside a douche used to be mixed with disinfectants like Lysol.^[5] This was considered the same as using spermicides; however, regular washing changes the chemical composition of the inner vaginal walls. As this part of the body is naturally a hostile environment for sperm, the process most likely left ladies’ insides more vulnerable to diseases and pregnancy than before the wash.

6 Plant Resin And Animal Feces

A tried and true natural spermicide can be made from a paste of acacia tree gum and honey. Acacia ferments and produces lactic acid, which will kill sperm if they come into contact with it.

The mixture was soaked in cotton and placed into the vagina in ancient Egypt, but this wasn’t the only natural spermicide that was popularly used.^[6] Everything from crocodile to elephant dung has been rumored to work and were also utilized often throughout parts of Asia.

5 Rythmeter

During the early years of the 1900s, birth control was more controversial than ever. On the one hand, there was an entire church following completely against contraceptives, and on the other, people were realizing that a substantial financial burden could be avoided merely by having fewer children. For this reason, scientists were looking closely into the science of contraception and exactly when a woman was and wasn’t fertile.^[7]

The problem was that most doctors studied animals and assumed women’s systems were the same; they soon found this not to be true. Upon the realization that doctors had been basing their observations off inaccurate subjects, scientists began delving further into the mystery of a woman’s fertile period. From these studies, a technical device known as a “Rythmeter” developed.

The complicated-looking wheel was meant for a woman to use as a calendar of her menstrual cycle and was supposed to help calculate when she was in a safe “rhythm” of infertility. Unfortunately, every body is different, and a lot of outside factors can come into play when trying to calculate virility. Although it was popular, compared to actual contraceptive devices like condoms, it was by far not the most effective.

4 Cervical Caps

The cervical cap has been around for centuries and only fell out of popularity recently because condoms and the pill became more widespread. However, it is making a comeback as a formidable means of birth control.

Usually used with another spermicide, the cervical cap is smaller than a diaphragm and creates a barrier around the cervix that sperm cannot get through. Through the centuries, such devices have been produced, even en masse, in the form of leather, metal, and plastic. One of the most famously creative ones, though, may have come from the notes of Giacomo Casanova.

Casanova, one of the more prominent historical figures known for his charm, noted in his memoirs the use of half a lemon as a cervical cap. Accompanying this with either a goat bladder or linen condom was one of his tried and true methods to prevent pregnancy. The acidity of the lemon most likely acted as a natural spermicide and probably accomplished its task relatively well.^[8]

3 Electrocautery

For years, multiple types of sterilization techniques have been tested in the medical world in an attempt to limit populations and to prevent those with medical issues from getting pregnant. Today, tube tying is particularly common for women, especially after having children, as a way to prevent a family from growing any larger. The primary benefit of this method is that it can often be undone, but this was not always the case.

One technique that was often endeavored and used in the late 1800s was that of electrocautery.^[9] Cauterization by the use of running electricity through metal rods was not uncommon, and it only made sense that this could be performed on the fallopian tubes. Using electrodes to seal off the pathways was meant to prevent eggs from becoming fertilized.

The technique was not necessarily known for being successful and caused more concern for safety than anything. However, it was popularly attempted for decades.

2 Rue, Pepper, And Pomegranate Seeds

Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi suggested a mixture of rue juice and pepper to be taken as the historical equivalent of a morning after pill. The herbal concoction was supposed to induce abortions, but the efficacy is up for questioning.^[10]

The Greeks, on the other hand, believed pomegranate seeds would reduce fertility, and it has been scientifically shown that rats that are fed the fruit do become less fertile.

1 Lead And Mercury

Perhaps the most truly dangerous contraceptive was seen in ancient China. Women in imperial times would intentionally drink metals such as mercury and lead to ensure that they didn’t become pregnant.^[11]

Today, we know that such substances would not only render you infertile but also make you extremely sick or crazy, result in organ failure, or cause other permanent damage. Unfortunately, the practice was relatively effective at preventing pregnancy and is known to have been in widespread use throughout the course of history.

A freelance writer of content and copy living the dream of a digital nomad. Learning skills and exploring new places is my favorite hobby.