8 Conception, Birth and Infancy in 



movement for birth control has won no such favor as it has in 

 many other countries. Some of the reasons behind Papal op- 

 position would appeal strongly to, let us say, Cato, the Censor, 

 or any other high-placed Roman of early days. 



Mussolini was a genuine old Roman in emphasizing the im- 

 portance of large families to Church and State, as the Papacy and 

 Fascism respectively conceive that church and state ought to 

 be. 3 Furthermore, he was a patriot of a not wholly unreasoning 

 optimism when he cherished the thought that the fatherland 

 might yet, as a land of fathers, merely through a cunicular fe- 

 cundity conquer much of the world for Rome — a military victory 

 achieved through sound biological principles and practices, but 

 one which, if we judge from present prospects, is a long, long 

 way off ! 



In spite of this powerful opposition from both Church and 

 Fascism, interest in ways of restricting the size of the family has 

 been mounting in Italy, and information and misinformation about 

 contraceptives and abortives circulate in the folkmedicine of the 

 land. It is with these and not, of course, with any scientific 

 methods of regular medicine that we are going to deal, since they 

 are the ones which have ancient antecedents. 4 



Such Italian women as put their faith in popular precepts may 

 use as safeguards decoctions made from the leaves or other parts 

 of elder, willow, valerian, dittany, rue, swallowwort, maidenhair 

 fern, and sage. Savin, a juniper (Juniperus sabina) is employed 

 in local applications. Much of this lore has commanded belief 

 for thousands of years. 5 Thus, people have thought of ferns as 

 plants that have no seeds and so as obviously possessed of power 

 to make women sterile or to bring about an abortion. 6 The fern 

 figures prominently, it is needless to say, in the botany of witch- 

 craft. 7 Other preventives and abortifacients in more or less vogue 

 among rustics are the testicles of a hare dried and reduced to 

 powder, the scrapings of a tobacco pipe, water which has remained 

 in casks of anchovies. 8 The first of these sounds more like a 

 recipe to encourage fecundity, especially in view of the animal 

 chosen for the sacrifice, but the second cannot be very ancient, 

 although it is true that smoking other things than tobacco was 

 known to Roman soldiers, and some of the pipes that were used 

 resemble those that are familiar now. 



