Abraham Stone

The quantity of vaginal fluid

Abstract 1. 1. The average quantity of fluid recovered from the vaginas of 113 women by swabbing the entire vaginal wall, while examining with a dry fenestrated speculum, was 0.76 Gm. 2. 2. During the period of 13 to 16 days before the expected menstruation the amount was 1 Gm. 3. 3. Since contraceptive foam tablets are exposed to only a portion of this fluid it is probable that reaction with the semen is more important in their protective activity than is solution in the vaginal fluid.

Induction of ovulation in the human: therapeutic and diagnostic importance.

Abstract 1.1. In anovulatory women, with normal or medically corrected thyroid and adrenal function, ovulation may be induced by triggering the release of LH with a single large intravenous dose of conjugated estrogens (equine). 2.2. The early diagnosis of surgically correctable ovulation defects may be made on the basis of absence of an ovulatory response to this therapy.

PRESENT‐DAY INTERNATIONAL TRENDS IN FAMILY PLANNING

Birth control is both old and new, As a social practice it is old; as a social movement it is new. It is old in the sense that contraceptive knowledge in some form, often mixed with magic, has existed for ages. I t is new in the sense that the knowledge of contraception is gradually becoming democratized and that today we are able better to distinguish between the rational and irrational, harmless and harmful, reliable and unreliable methods. Long before the dawn of written history, savage peoples made some attempts to adjust their populations to their food supplies. They did this by wasteful and cruel methods of infanticide, abortion, killing the aged, by ritual taboos on the time of intercourse, and by prolonging the nursing period. More effective in limiting population were the involuntary checks of disease, famine, floods, and wars. Only recently have scientific preventive measures been developed, and today they are beginning to play an important role in family and population planning. The growing interest the world over in planned parenthood stems from the medical awareness that family planning and child spacing are necessary for the physical well-being of mother and child; from the psychological awareness that the removal of fear and anxiety of an unwanted conception is necessary for the emotional stability of the home and family life; from a spiritual conviction that voluntary parenthood, the conscious control of reproduction, contributes to human dignity and the ethical values of life; and from our growing social awareness that a better balance between populations and resources, between human fertility and soil fertility, is essential for the welfare of nations and the peace of the world. Today, we are faced with two major global phenomena: The fertility of man is increasing a t a rate faster than ever before in the history of the world and, a t the same time, the fertility of the soil is rapidlydeclining. The curve of population growth is ascending steeply, while that of the world’s resources is descending. Nearly two-thirds of the world population, approximately two out of every three of the men, women and children on the face of the earth, are without the basic necessities of life. Millions of people are living at a mere subsistence level, and are constantly faced with actual starvation. In an address before a conference of Unesco on April 15, 1950, Jaipe Rorres Bodet, the director general, stated that the question of food and people was “the gravest international problem today from the long-term standpoint.” “The world’s population is increasing in excess of 20,000,000 a year,” Mr. Bodet said. “These millions must be fed. Yet we are not producing enough food for our present population. Even before World War I1 some two-thirds of the world’s people were not getting enough to eat. Unless food production is brought into balance with population increases, humanity