The Invention of Preservatives

I choose to write about this invention because most people guess that it is a recent invention. It could be, but it is not.  The preservative is an old invention.  But this invention went through many modifications to become what we know as a preservative today. I believe that it may have happened to many other inventions, because to make something really good and useful, it needs to go through numerous steps, including testing, review and improvement. As I said, the preservative is an old invention and was modified many times. So I will explain a little bit about it.

Around 1300 BC the Egyptians used a kind of preservative made of vegetable materials. We may realize that the people already worried about some diseases in the past. In the second century BC the Romans begin to use another kind of preservative made of lamb intestines and goat bladders to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases. The Romans believe these diseases were punishments sent by Venus, the God of love. Years after her name was given to these diseases, and nowadays they are called “venereal diseases”. Many centuries later in 1564, the Italian Gabriel Fallopius invented a wrap made of linen bag which was placed over the penis to protect against diseases. Gabriel found great success with this invention, because besides the protection against diseases, the linen bag also prevented pregnancy. This event became well known and the linen bag began to be very used, probably solving some social problems in that period. After Gabriel’s invention, it was made possible to have birth control in specific places. Around 1685, in England, the wrap was made of lamb intestine and lubricated with almond oil, and named Condom. Since the year 1700, this invention began to be enhanced, in order to make it thinner and less cumbersome. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, London opened the first shop of preservatives. It was made of sheep intestine or lamb with floral flavoring, it was sold in a customized way. In 1834, the preservatives began to be made of rubber by Hancock and Goodyear. Those preservatives were irregular and expensive. Because it was so expensive, people were using the same preservative more than one time. In 1960, with the invention of the Birth Control Pill, the preservative was no longer used. But in 1990, due to fear caused by the AIDS epidemic, it began to be used again.

Nowadays, the preservative is an item of extreme importance. It not only protects people of many kinds of diseases, but also enables us to control our own bodies. In other words, we can choose when to have children and how many kids we want to have. But, as I said before, to prevent unwanted pregnancy, we have other kinds of  contraceptives, such as Birth Control Pills, the Morning after-pill, some devices to put inside of a woman's body and surgical interventions.

In my opinion, nowadays the preservative is extremely necessary because it is the only contraceptive that may protect us from sexually transmitted diseases. And as we realized throughout history, this is an old problem.  In many countries, the government spends millions with campaigns to spread awareness about the use of preservatives. And also, many manufacturers everyday are looking for new ways to attract customers.