By then, condoms had gained a modicum of public acceptance. In 1930, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that while condoms were illegal when advertised for “illegal sex,” they were legal when purchased to prevent disease. This has expanded marketing opportunities. Manufacturers were now able to sell them across national borders. As Andrea Tone notes, “the VM crisis has freed Americans from the reclassification of sex as a legitimate subject of scientific and social research, and has made sexual behavior a matter of public welfare.” In 1918, Congress created the Division of Venereal Diseases as part of the U.S. Public Health Service and allocated more than $4 million for prevention and treatment. That same year, the Crane-Chase court decision legalized the prescription of contraceptives to “cure and prevent disease,” paving the way for the unfettered distribution of condoms. After decades of secrecy, this decision gave sex products a public respite though, though Edmonson points out that their contraceptive uses have been remarkably unmentioned.
“It was implicit, understood and implicit, but not really,” says Edmonson, “so `wink.`” The Cornstock Acts, passed in the United States in 1873, prohibited the sale of condoms by mail and prevented public advertising for contraception. STDs were a growing problem after 1865, the end of the American Civil War and a new era in history. Sex education was more prevalent at the time to sensitize the lower working class in America. The transformation of the condom of a piece of bladder into a small type of simple latex with great flexibility is a transformation that can be considered from a medical, scientific and social point of view. Medical knowledge about periods prior to ours can be considered from the analysis of their methods of contraception and prevention of venereal diseases. A major conclusion that can be drawn from this medical history is that civilization has always had a way to treat its birth control problems and sexually transmitted diseases, as it has affected people of all races, colors, creeds, and religions. This advanced device has gained so much popularity that a forecast of 18 billion condoms is planned for 2015 alone[6]. When World War I military service exams revealed infections for nearly a quarter of all recruits, military policy was changed to include some soldiers with pre-existing DV. Over the next two years, about 380,000 U.S.
soldiers would be diagnosed with some form of CF, ultimately costing the U.S. more than $50 million for treatment. Jim Edmonson explains that American soldiers were not given condoms during World War I; instead, they received a “Dough Boy Prophylactic Kit.” The idea behind these kits was that soldiers who “went on vacation on weekends and had sexual contact then cleaned themselves with antiseptics and urethral injections and so on.” Edmonson points out that this method was like “closing the door after the horse has left the stable; not very effective. Condoms were illegal in the United States, believe it or not, but it`s true. Even more surprising was the period when condoms were illegal in the United States, more than 50 years. It may seem quite illogical in today`s world to ban such an important element of health protection, but that is exactly what happened in the United States. The law that banned condoms was the Comstock Act, enacted in 1873. The Comstock Act was a federal law that made it illegal to send “obscene, obscene, and/or lascivious material” by mail.
The law was drafted to include all contraceptive materials. When we say any material, we mean any material. It was not only the information that was illegal, but also the physical objects. Condoms did not become popular forms of birth control again until the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. However, networks continued to ban condom advertising, even though U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that condom ads should be broadcast on television (some public service announcements aired in 1986). The networks feared alienating conservative consumers, many of whom opposed birth control. As one ABC executive told the House subcommittee, condom advertising violated “standards of good taste and community acceptance.” In the 1930s, more attention was paid to quality issues. In 1935, a biochemist tested 2000 condoms by filling each with air and then water: he found that 60% of them leaked.
The condom industry estimates that only 25% of condoms have been tested for quality before packaging. Media attention prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to classify condoms as a drug in 1937 and require every condom to be tested before packaging. The Youngs Rubber Company was the first to introduce quality testing for every condom manufactured, installing automatic testing equipment designed by Arthur Youngs (the owner`s brother) in 1938. The federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act allowed the FDA to seize defective products; In the first month the law went into effect in 1940, the FDA seized 864,000 condoms. Although these measures have improved the quality of condoms in the United States, U.S. condom manufacturers have continued to export their waste for sale in foreign markets. [2]: 223–5 The first well-documented epidemic of syphilis today occurred in 1494 among French troops.
[5] The disease then swept across Europe.