Incidentally, the name “condom” first appeared in English in 1665, in a poem, A Panegyric upon Cundum, by syphilitic literary genius John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester. For many years, it was rumored that a certain Colonel Condom, royal physician, had invented the device for the randy English King Charles II to stop him producing more bastard progeny, but exhaustive modern searches have shown that the man did not exist. • 7 April 2008