Reproductive Physiology and Birth Control : The Writings of Charles Knowlton and Annie Besant.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Chandrasekhar, S., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bradlaugh, Charles, 1833-1891.

Bradlaugh, Charles.

Birth control.

Malthusianism.

Population policy.

Birth control--Religious aspects--Theosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 217 pages)

Edition:

Paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

London : Taylor and Francis, 2017.

Summary:

""I say that this is a dirty, filthy book, and the test of it is that no human being would allow that book on his table, no decently educated English husband would allow even his wife to have ità ." Such was the uncompromising pronouncement of Sir Hardinge Gifford, Her Majesty's Solicitor General, who in 1877 prosecuted Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant for publishing Dr. Charles Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy.Knowlton's work was the first American medical handbook on contraception. It had become an incredibly popular book among Britons who believed the neo-Malthusian dictum that the only solution to poverty in Britain was a limit on the growth of its population. They saw effective birth control measures as a way to make such a limit practicable. In 1877, its publisher was hauled into court and pleaded guilty to printing obscene material. Bradlaugh and Besant tested the right of official harassment by bringing out an edition of the Fruits of Philosophy that bore an introduction explaining their motives. The pair was arrested and charged with violating the Obscene Publications Act of 1857.Their arrest, trial, conviction, and eventual acquittal constitute a landmark in the history of the world birth control movement. The enormous publicity accorded the principals and their cause brought the subject of family planning into the homes of nearly every Briton who read the newspapers' sensational coverage. What followed thereafter is telling: a dramatic, steady decline in the English birthrate. By their simple act of publishing Knowlton's short book, Bradlaugh and Besant helped establish England's pioneering role in the dissemination, democratization, and implementation of birth control information.Sripati Chandrasekhar is an internationally respected demographer and social scientist. He is a former minister of health and family planning in India and was vice-chancellor of Annamalai University in South India. He is the author of numerous books and articles on population and family planning."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Chapter Introduction

chapter The Life and Work of Knowlton and His Fruits of Philosophy

chapter The Bradlaugh-Besant Trial 1877-1878

chapter The Writings of Annie Besant

The Law of Population

chapter Appendix

Notes on Individuals and Terms

part The Texts

chapter Publishers' Preface

chapter Preface to Second New Edition

chapter Preface

By One of the Former Publishers

chapter Philosophical Proem

chapter 1 Showing how desirable it is, both in a political and a social point of view, for mankind to be able to limit, at will, the number of their offspring, without sacrificing the pleasure that attends the gratification of the reproductive instinct

chapter II On Generation

chapter III Of Promoting and Checking Conception

chapter IV Remarks on the Reproductive Instinct

part Finis.

chapter Preface to Seventieth Thousand English Edition, 1882

chapter 1 The Law of Population

chapter II Its Consequences

chapter III Its Bearing Upon Human Conduct and Morals

chapter IV Objections Considered

chapter Theosophy and the Law of Population.

Notes:

Originally published: "A dirty filthy book". Berkeley : University of California Press, c1981.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-351-30730-4

1-351-30732-0

1-351-30731-2

9781351307321

OCLC:

1082202361