The first person to publicly extol the contraceptive virtues of the condom was the Englishman Richard Carlisle, whose 1826 opus, Every Woman’s Book, or What is Love? became a bestseller. Carlisle noted that condoms could be purchased in London from waiters at most reputable taverns, but suggested to British girls that they never leave home without their sponges. Ever since the ancient Greeks, dried sponges and sheep’s bladders inserted into the vagina had been used as rudimentary diaphragms. “The French and Italian women wear them fastened to their waists,” notes Carlisle, “and always have them at hand.” If caught, women should fall back on coitus interruptus, the withdrawal method, to avoid conception. European women “make this part of the contract before intercourse, and look upon the man as a dishonest brute who does not attend to it.”