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Long before drugstores stocked neat little foil packets, people still wanted a way to prevent pregnancy and disease during sex. The solutions they came up with were resourceful, strange, and occasionally alarming by modern standards.
Ancient Egyptians are believed to have used linen sheaths soaked in oil or medicinal solutions as early as 1000 BCE. Some historians think these were more about protecting against disease than preventing pregnancy.
By the 1500s, Italian anatomist Gabriele Falloppio described a linen sheath soaked in a chemical solution, tested on over a thousand men. He claimed none of them contracted syphilis, making it one of the earliest documented studies on the subject.
Things got stranger in the 1600s and 1700s, when Europeans began crafting condoms out of animal intestines, particularly from sheep and goats. These were washed, treated, and sometimes tied with a ribbon at the base for a snug fit.
These early intestine condoms weren't cheap or disposable. Wealthy men often washed and reused them multiple times, a practice that sounds unthinkable today but was standard for centuries.
Everything changed in 1839 when Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanization process for rubber. By the 1850s, manufacturers were producing rubber condoms that were thick, reusable, and still far from comfortable, but a major leap forward in mass production.
It wasn't until the 1920s that latex condoms arrived, offering the thin, disposable design people recognize today. What started with treated animal intestines centuries earlier had finally evolved into something dependable, affordable, and far less squeamish to talk about.
