Use of Drugs and Intrauterine Devices for Birth Control

THE urgent need to control the world's population combined with the desire for a truly satisfactory method of birth control has stimulated an unparalleled effort in the area of contraceptive research. Two major breakthroughs in the past 20 years have offered potential solutions to these problems for the first time in history. The discovery that certain synthetic hormones taken by mouth were almost 100. per cent effective in controlling conception gave the motivated patient a reliable contraceptive that was almost ideal. The development of new intrauterine devices that were highly effective and required little patient motivation offered a real hope . . .