science · 10 May 1800 · 224 years ago
birth
Born 10 May 1800; died 20 Feb 1850 at age 49.
American physician whose popular treatise on birth control, the object of celebrated court actions in the U.S. and England, initiated the widespread use of contraceptives. Anonymously published, his book The Fruits of Philosophy: or The Private Companion of Young Married People was the first on the subject in the U.S. Despite an otherwise appropriate discussion of the medical, social, and economic aspects of birth control, he so offended the public taste of the times that he was prosecuted in the U.S., fined (1832) and imprisoned for three months. In England he was aquitted in what became a famous test case. Subsequently, the book sales rose from 1,000 to 250,000 a year.
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