In 1878, Sarah Chase was on the lecture circuit. A graduate of a homeopathic college and a single mother, Chase made her living in Manhattan giving talks at community spaces around the city and, afterwards, selling what contemporary police reports and newspapers called “vile articles,” including sponges, syringes, and instructions for how to, in the parlance of the era, “bring down the menses,” in other words, induce an abortion. Examples of the kind of ad hoc birth control devices that Chase sold are now on display at the Dittrick Museum…
