Napoleon’s Buttons

Buchzusammenfassung

Penny LeCouteur is an author and professor of chemistry based in Vancouver, Canada, and is the recipient of the Polysar Award for Outstanding Chemistry Teaching in Canadian Colleges.

The rise of antiseptics and antibiotics in the 20th century increased child survival rates, prompting women to seek reliable birth control methods. Before the advent of "the pill," options were ineffective and often hazardous, such as consuming snake eggs or mercury-based remedies. This dire need led Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick to champion the development of an affordable, effective oral contraceptive. By the 1950s, research on norethindrone, initially intended to regulate menstrual cycles, became the foundation for the birth control pill. Sanger and McCormick, both in their seventies, funded and collaborated with scientists to create a pill as easy to take as aspirin. By 1965, 4 million women were using the pill, a number that grew to 80 million within two decades. Its societal impact was transformative, reducing birth rates, empowering women to pursue education and careers, and fueling the feminist and sexual revolutions of the 1960s. This chapter sets the stage for exploring how other scientific advancements have similarly reshaped human history.

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