Invention Of The Pill

Oral contraceptives, more popularly known as the Pill, were first made available to the public in 1960. The Pill set the tone for the "swinging sixties", but the research that led to its invention by Gregory Pincus dates back to 1919.

The contraceptive pill was developed by Drs Gregory Pincus and John Rock (both USA) during the 1950s, but the synthetic hormones that form its active ingredients were the result of much earlier research. The first person to suggest the idea of a contraceptive pill was Ludwig Haberlandt (Austria), who began his research at the University if Innsbruck in 1919: he discovered that hormones could be used to prevent pregnancy, and in 1927 he declared: "My aim: fewer but fully desired children!"

Building on Haberlandt's research, scientists discovered that the active hormone was progesterone, but this was expensive to isolate and largely ineffective when taken orally. Then, in 1939, Russell Marker (USA) discovered that the progesterone could be synthesized from a chemical contained in a particular type of Mexican yam, and formed a company called Syntex to further his research. A decade later, Carl Djerassi (Austria-USA) took up an invitation to work for Syntex, and in October 1951 Djerassi and his colleagues Luis Miramontes and George Rosenkranz (both Mexico) succeeded in creating the first synthetic progesterone.

Meanwhile, Frank Colton (Poland-USA) had also been building on Marker's research, and in 1953 he filed two patents relating to another method of synthesizing hormones. Colton and Djerassi were both using their synthetic hormones to treat menstrual problems, and it seems that no-one thought of using them as contraceptives until Margaret Sanger (USA) of the Planned Parenthood Movement initiated research into an oral contraceptive. As a result, Pincus and Rock developed a pill (using Colton's product) that they field-tested from 1954 onwards; it became commercially available in the USA in 1960, and in Britain the following year. Inevitably, the Pill has caused ethical controversy, not least because it enables women to live out the words of Carl Djerassi, who said that: "Sex should be done for pleasure; reproduction for reproduction."

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison