Here you see an illustration of one of the most important medical textbooks in history: Avicenna’s _Canon of Medicine_. Written by 1025 CE, the _Canon_ represented a pinnacle of scientific progress in the Golden Age of Islam. Avicenna synthesized knowledge from the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Ancient and Medieval India, China, and Persian Muslim traditions to compose this encyclopedic volume. One of the chapters dealt with methods of birth control, and I am going to list some: 1) after coitus, the woman should immediately jump backwards forcefully seven to nine times; 2) the man should put pitch and white lead on his penis before coitus; or, 3) after coitus, the woman should put a suppository inside her vigina. Several options include a pulp of pomegranate and alum, pepper, and elephant dung. These ideas are cringe-worthy, but it is anachronistic of us to be overly critical when we have centuries of chemical advancements unavailable to eleventh-century people. In fact, we could do well to keep in mind that Islam was historically tolerant towards contraception, which has not been the case for some other religious traditions.
Source(s): See Winston Black, _Medicine_ and Healing in the Pre-Modern West: A History in Documents_, Broadview Press, 2020 (it is just off the press and I was able to review this terrific book!), p. 241. The illustration is Wellcome Images CC BY 4.0.
