Highlights from 10. February 2016

We don’t mention contraception and we don’t do abortions. These two longstanding taboos – that in many countries still persist today – have led to some very unusual inventions. For example, an elegant desk clock developed by Walter Thiele which has entries relating to contraception that are visible only to those in the know: http://en.muvs.org/contraception/introspection/gynodate-id3027-en/

Illegal abortions presented a much more difficult problem: it was all too easy to get found out. So people used whatever was available to them – but whatever it was, it mustn’t be anything that might arouse suspicion. If you were lucky, you could get hold of a medical instrument that could be credibly explained away:http://en.muvs.org/abortion/instruments/instrument-for-abortion-id2341/

Visit the Museum for Contraception and Abortion (MUVS), Mariahilfer Gürtel 37, 1150 Vienna, open Wednesday to Sunday, 2 to 6 p.m., or visit our website onhttp://en.muvs.org/ and our facebooksite http://www.facebook.com/eMUVS.