"A born writer, especially a born story-teller. Dr. Sutherland, who is distinguished in medicine, is an amateur in the sense that he only writes when he has nothing better to do. But when he does, it could hardly be done better." G.K. Chesterton.
This object was at the centre of the so-called Birth Control Libel Trial between Marie Stopes and Halliday Sutherland of 1923: The rubber cervical cap was supplied at cost, and fitted free of charge, at Dr. Marie Stopes’ Holloway clinic.
The high-domed cap was designed by Stopes herself (based on a French design) and was manufactured by John Bell Croyden Ltd. The “Pro-Race” brand was Stopes own brand, reflecting her eugenic beliefs and the purpose underlying the establishment of her free birth-control clinic in Holloway in 1921.
Stopes’ biographers have tended to play down the eugenic aspects of her birth-control campaign, or simply don’t mention it at all. The cap, with its “Pro-Race” banner printed clearly across the top of the dome means that linking eugenics and Stopes’ birth control campaign is not an academic argument; It is a fact.
Thanks to the Science and Society Picture Library for permitting the use of this photograph (http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10648812).
That’s a very compelling image…paints a thousand words!
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