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hairyfigment comments on Crossing the History-Lessons Threshold - Less Wrong
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I've seen the assertion that Rome had an effective birth control drug which they drove to extinction. Not sure how much I believe this.
"It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies." :)
I've never heard of woo contraceptives. Getting pregnant isn't susceptible to the placebo effect, and its pretty obvious when it doesn't work.
Getting pregnant may be more difficult than you think. Even if there's no placebo, there's still confirmation and disconfirmation bias and argument from authority i.e. doctors. Perhaps it wasn't marketed as a perfectly reliable contraceptive and therefore noticing that it doesn't work would have been more difficult. Medical authorities could explain the failures away with the phases of the moon or the will of the gods or something similarly silly.