HISTOKICAL KACES 255 



course with a nursing mother which was supposed to hurt the 

 suckling '^ In Turkey also there is said to be no intercourse 

 during lactation. 2 There are thus indications of the practice of 

 this important custom, and it may be that it existed in such a 

 degree as to have exerted considerable influence. 3 



9. There is a general impression that the knowledge of contra- 

 ceptive methods has only been acquired in modern times. This, 

 however, is not correct. We have already seen that there is 

 evidence of their use in the second group. In the third group 

 there is evidence of the knowledge of certain methods in early 

 times. Theilhaber gives some particulars regarding their employ* 

 ment among the Jews, German tribes, Arabs, the Franks before 

 their conversion to Christianity, the Greeks, and the Komans. 4 

 Methods are employed at the present day in China 5 and in India, 6 

 though there is some doubt as to how far they are effective. 

 According to Wattal there is some statistical evidence from India 

 which may be interpreted either as a result of such practices or as 

 a result of abstention from intercourse. 7 There is not sufficient 

 evidence to allow of any exact estimate being made of the extent 

 of these practices. Generally speaking, however, it would appear 

 that it is not until we arrive at the latest period of human history 

 that we find these practices to be of considerable importance. 



10. With regard to the size of families in early times there is 

 little exact evidence. Among Asiatic peoples at the present day 

 we have some evidence of the degree of fertility, whereas hitherto 

 the evidence has been only that of the number of children sur- 

 viving after infanticide and infant mortality had taken their toll. 

 This evidence from the Asiatic races we may now turn to discuss, 

 but we may note before doing so that the evidence for the remain- 

 ing races of the first sub-group gives a rather different impression 

 than that which we obtain when studying primitive races ; upon 

 the whole we get the impression that families were at least not so 

 markedly small as among primitive races. 8 



Fertility is often said to be higher in the East than in Europe. 

 So far as India is concerned this is not so. The error has arisen 

 because attention has been paid to the crude birth-rate. When 



1 Smith, Kinship, p. 283. 2 Rigler, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 212. 3 It is 



possible that there are traces of this custom in Persia (see Polak, loc. cit., vol. i, 

 p. 216). * Theilhaber, Das sterile Berlin, p. 10. See also Theilhaber, ' Die 



Geburten-Beschrankung ', Neue Generation, 1913. 8 Collineau, Revue Men- 



suclle de Vficole <f Anthropologie, 1899. Webb, Pathologia Indica, p. 258. 



7 Wattal, loc. cit., p. 28. Aristotle, Politics, ii. 9. 



