The development history of condoms - from the swim bladder in "Martial Arts" to rubber.

"Martial Arts" is a hit in China. There is an ambiguous scene in the film: Tang Wei washes the fish maw with a virtuous face. Donnie Yen comes over and says: "Don't bother, you also know that I don't like fish." "The fishy smell", Tang Wei asked worriedly: "Then... what if I have another child?" Donnie Yen immediately responded in a manly manner: "Then just give birth, at most the life will be a little harder."

As the only "passionate dialogue between husband and wife" in the whole film, besides the passion, it also popularizes a little knowledge to us: it turns out that fish bladders can be used as condoms. Yes, fish bladders can indeed be used as condoms.

The earliest condoms were specially invented for emperors

In the past, ancient people used various methods to prevent pregnancy, such as applying condoms inside the vagina. Crocodile poop, inserting cotton balls soaked in lemon juice, ejaculation, safety periods and more. However, although these methods have some truth, they are not so reliable. Until the Middle Ages, an important event occurred in the history of human contraception - it was said that King Charles II of England was extravagant and had many illegitimate children, which was very disturbing. So a physician named "Condom" invented a real condom for the emperor and named it after himself (some people say that the name Condom comes from the word formation. The doctor is just a legend, so I won't go into details here. ).

Of course, the rubber formula and processing technology in that era were not as good as today, so what did they use to make sleeves? Smart people took aim at some natural, thin and strong materials - that is Fish maws, as well as things like animal intestines and skins.

Make a "pure natural" condom

Of course, these dirty, slippery, smelly, and somewhat fishy things cannot be put on directly and start working. . To make a complete set, there is still a lot of work to be done. Let’s briefly talk about the production process of these “pure natural” condoms using sheep intestines as an example.

First, soak the sheep's large intestine in water for several hours, and then turn the soaked intestine inside out. Then, continue to soak the intestines with a weakly alkaline solution for 1 day, changing the solution every 12 hours. After soaking this time, gently scrape off the intestinal mucosa, leaving only the muscle layer. Then fumigated with burning sulfur. After processing, wash it with soap and water, blow it to dry, cut it into 17-20 cm long sections, and then tie it up with a ribbon.

In addition, there are some other styles of condom production methods, which are similar to the above-mentioned process. Finally, a little tidbit. In those days, there were many amateur sausage-stuffing masters doing this.

At that time, condoms made of intestines were not affordable for ordinary people. They were very precious and had to be washed and reused until they were worn out. As for the fish bladder cover, because the raw materials are very difficult to find (where are there so many suitable fish bladders), they are also rare and expensive.

Rubber condoms were born

Fortunately, American Charles Goodyear obtained a patent for rubber vulcanization in the 1840s, and condoms entered the market from then on. ushered in the era of industrialized mass production.

After the Republic of China, the use of condoms gradually attracted attention in China and became a concrete manifestation of the cultural exchange between Chinese and Western artifacts. In relevant literature and translations from the Republic of China period, the names of condoms include kidney garments, penis bags, romantic bags, etc., and the materials include silk, fish bladder, sheep intestine, linen, rubber, etc. Later, due to different material quality, different use effects, and the gradual decrease in rubber prices after industrialized production, rubber condoms gradually became the first choice of the public.