Essential Fertility: Through the Ages

In the 17th century, many doctors believed sperm heads contained miniature, fully formed people called homunculi, who would develop into a baby when deposited in the womb. A popular competing theory: Mini-humans were housed in the egg, and sperm would trigger their growth.

The first home pregnancy test hit the market in 1978 and was wildly popular, but its inventors, researchers at the National Institutes of Health, were not allowed to profit from their discovery. At the time, the NIH denied its scientists royalties for discoveries made using public funds, a policy since reversed.

An Egyptian papyrus circa 1350 BCE describes a pregnancy test in which a woman urinated on wheat and barley seeds. If the barley grew, it meant she was carrying a boy; if the wheat grew, a girl. A 1963 investigation found this test to be 70 percent accurate, likely because of the elevated estrogen levels in pregnant women’s urine.

The first successful artificial insemination via donor sperm occurred in 1884—without the woman’s knowledge. While ostensibly performing a routine exam, the doctor inseminated his patient with a handsome med student’s sperm. He never saw fit to tell the woman, but did eventually inform her infertile husband.

A 1969 Harris poll found more than half of Americans believed that emerging reproductive technologies such as artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and surrogate motherhood would “encourage promiscuity” and signify “the end of babies born through love.”

Some 19th-century physicians believed that infertility was caused by a woman’s “excessive or luxurious living” or by strenuous mental activity such as schooling. “The results are monstrous brains and puny bodies,” a Harvard physician wrote. “The brain cannot take more than its share without injury to other organs.”