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The Compromise Tariff Act ends the threat of open conflict between the industrial North and the cotton-exporting South by defusing the nullification issue. The British cavalry officer Sir Banastre Tarleton who showed no mercy to Southern colonists in 1780 and 1781 has died in Shropshire January 25 at age 78. The House of Representatives votes February 26 by a margin of 119 to 85 to approve the bill submitted by Sen. Henry Clay (Ky.); the Senate approves March 1 by a vote of 29 to 16; and President Jackson signs it into law. But Clay introduces two measures of censure against the president in December, speaking for 3 days and going so far as to say, "The premonitory symptoms of despotism are upon us; and if Congress does not apply an instantaneous and effective remedy, the fatal collapse will soon come on, and we shall die—ignobly die—base, mean, and abject slaves; the scorn and contempt of mankind, unpitied, unwept, unmourned!" (see censure, 1834).
Secretary of State Edward Livingston resigns May 29 to become minister to France and heads a mission that tries to obtain payment of claims by U.S. citizens as provided for under the treaty signed in 1831, but a year of negotiations will prove futile (see 1834).
Virginia statesman and slave owner John Randolph dies at Philadelphia May 14 at age 59; former U.S. Navy commodore William Bainbridge at Philadelphia July 27 at age 59.
The Convention of Kütahya signed May 4 brings a temporary halt in hostilities between Cairo and Constantinople (see 1832). The Ottoman sultan Mahmud II agrees to let the Egyptian viceroy (vizier) Muhammad Ali have sovereignty over Syria and Cilicia (Adana), and Muhammad's son Ibrahim becomes governor general of the two provinces. Ruling from Damascus, Ibrahim will suppress the feudal regime, but the severe measures that he imposes will arouse sectarian opposition (see 1838).
The Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (Hünkar Iskelesi) signed outside Constantinople July 8 settles disputes between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, which in a secret clause gains the right to close the Dardanelles in time of war, thus making the empire a virtual protectorate of Russia. Austria, Britain, and France have rejected the Ottoman sultan Mahmud II's appeals for their help against his insurgent viceroy Muhammad Ali in Egypt, so he has turned to the Russians, whose foreign minister Karl Robert Vasilyevich, Graf Nesselrode, tries to maintain the Ottoman Empire's dependence on Russia (but see Straits Convention, 1841).
Spain's Ferdinand VII dies at Madrid September 29 at age 48 after a repressive 19-year reign in which he has spent 7 years as a prisoner of France. His 2-year-old daughter will reign until 1868 as Isabella II, dominated first by Ferdinand's fourth wife, Maria Cristina of Naples (who 3 years ago persuaded Ferdinand to abolish the Salic law in Spain by pragmatic sanction), and then by profligate courtiers. The former prime minister Manuel Godoy returns to Madrid in hopes of having his properties restored, but to no avail; civil war begins as Don Carlos Maria Isidro de Bourbon, 46, brother of the late Ferdinand, claims the throne. He gains support from Basques, Catalonians, the Church, and reactionary elements in Aragon and Navarre, but most notably from military tactician Tomás de Zumalacárregui y de Imaz, 44, who distinguished himself as a youth in the war of independence against Spain, joins the Carlists in December, and sets to work unifying a Carlist army in Navarre and the Basque provinces of northern Spain (see 1834).
A Portuguese loyalist fleet under the command of Scottish-born admiral Charles Napier, 47, destroys the fleet of the pretender Dom Miguel in a battle off Cape St. Vincent July 5 (Napier has served with the Royal Navy in the Peninsular War against Napoleon, in the War of 1812 against the United States, and in the war of Greek independence). Portugal's Maria II is restored to the throne by her father, Dom Pedro, who has returned from Brazil and defeated her brother Dom Miguel with French and British aid. A quadruple alliance of Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal will expel Miguel from Portugal at the end of May 1834 following the death of Dom Pedro, and Maria will reign until 1853 through two insurrections.
Brazilian authorities arrest former prime minister José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva on charges of having intrigued against the government of the boy emperor Pedro II, now 7, whom Andrada has been tutoring. Andrada retires from public life (see Acto Adicional, 1834).
South American liberator Francisco de Santander takes office as president of New Granada April 1 under a new constitution promulgated last year (see 1828). Santander will remain president until 1837, despite a conspiracy to depose him for reasons related in part to his intolerance for followers of his former friend and ally Símon Bolívar.
Chile's dictator Diego Portales pushes through a constitution that creates a centralized state dominated by the clergy and the landed oligarchy (see 1830; war, 1836).
A British gunboat claims the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic as crown territory. Also known as the Malvinas, the islands were claimed by Argentina in 1820 when she seceded from Spain (see 1982).
Mexicans hold presidential elections that end in victory for Antonio López de Santa Anna, now 39, who seized power after Anastasio Bustamante's coup d'état in 1830 but has little interest in running the country.
Vom Krieg (On War) by the late Prussian Army general and military strategist Karl Maria von Clausewitz is a study of the science of warfare that will be a classic. Clausewitz served with the Russians against Napoleon in 1812, was made a major general and director of the Allgemeine Kriegschule in 1818, but died in November 1831 at age 51 in Breslau's cholera epidemic. "War," he has written, "is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will . . . Attached to force are certain self-imposed, imperceptible limitations hardly worth mentioning, known as international law and custom, but they scarcely weaken it" (see philanthropy, 1862).
The German foundling Kaspar Hauser dies December 17 at age 21 of stab wounds received from someone who called him to a rendezvous with promises of information regarding his parentage. Picked up by Nuremberg police 5 years ago, he was rumored to be of noble birth, possibly the prince of Baden, and has been adopted by Philip Henry, 28, earl of Stanhope.
Parliament orders abolition of slavery in the British colonies by August 1, 1834 in a bill passed August 23 after a long campaign by the humanitarian William Wilberforce, who has died at London July 29 at age 73. Children under age 6 are to be freed immediately, slaves over 6 to be given a period of apprenticeship that will be eliminated in 1837, slave-owners to be paid a total of £120 million (£19 per slave) in compensation.
"An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans" by Boston abolitionist David Lee Child, 39, and his bride Lydia Maria (Francis) Child, now 31, proposes that blacks be educated. The idea is considered outrageous in most circles, but the Appeal converts many supporters of slavery to the abolitionist cause.
Canterbury, Connecticut, schoolmistress Prudence Crandall, 29, admits a black girl to the private girls' academy she opened 2 years ago and immediately comes under fire for violating a special act of the legislature directing her not to admit black girls. On the advice of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and others, she establishes a new school for "young ladies and little misses of color." Outraged neighbors pressure the state legislature in May to enact a bill forbidding the establishment of schools for nonresident blacks without permission from local authorities. Crandall is indicted, convicted, and placed in prison, where she will remain until July of next year, when her conviction will be reversed on a technicality. Local pressure will force her to close her school 2 months later.
The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded at Philadelphia December 4 by abolitionists who include James Mott, 45. The Female Anti-Slavery Society is founded at Philadelphia under the leadership of James's Nantucket-born wife, Lucretia (née Coffin), 40, after she finds that her husband's group is for men only.
Atlanta, Georgia, has its beginnings in a cabin built by pioneer Hardy Ivy on former Creek lands at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The town of Terminus will be founded at the site in 1837 (see 1843).
Explorer and fur trader Andrew Henry dies at his St. Louis home June 10 at age 58 (approximate).
The Compromise Tariff Act voted by Congress early in the year provides for gradual reduction of U.S. tariffs until July 1, 1842, when no rate is to be higher than 20 percent.
The Zollverein (customs union) formed at Berlin March 22 includes Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, but not Austria (see 1853).
The East India Company loses its prized monopoly in the China trade (most of it in opium and tea) by an act of the British prime minister Earl Grey. Massachusetts-born merchant Warren Delano, 24, sails for Guangzhou (Canton) and joins the 10-year-old Boston-based Russell, Sturgis & Company, whose ships are making it preeminent among U.S. firms trading in Chinese silk and tea (see Jardine, Matheson, 1832). New Jersey-born Cantonese opium merchant John Cleve Green, 33, accepts an offer to join Russell, Sturgis; he will head the company beginning next year, add opium trading to its tea and textile businesses, and reap a huge fortune.
The New York firm Wetmore, Hoppin & Company enters the lucrative China trade. Founded in April by Vermont-born merchants Samuel Wetmore, 58, his brother Willard Wright Wetmore, also 58 (who dies later in the year), and John Griswold in partnership with Samuel Russell (Providence, Rhode Island, merchants Benjamin Hoppin, 56, and Thomas C. Hoppin, 48, will later become partners), the company will continue until November 1841.
Baghdad-born entrepreneur David Sassoon, 41, establishes a company at Bombay that will make him a fortune. He has been sending large quantities of opium into China, will set up a branch at Hong Kong in 1844, a Shanghai branch in 1845, and by that time one out of every five opium chests brought into China will arrive in a Sassoon ship (although U.S. ships will also carry Sassoon opium). Within 2 years more than 2 million Chinese will be addicted. Helped by his eight sons, Sassoon will also import British textiles into China and export Chinese fireworks, porcelain, silk, tea, and silver, taking out so much silver that it will nearly bankrupt the Chinese government.
The Factory Act voted by Parliament August 29 forbids employment of children under age 9, forbids factory owners to work children aged 9 through 12 for more than 48 hours per week and for more than 8 hours per day, requires that children under 13 be given at least 2 hours of schooling per day, limits working hours for children aged 13 through 17 to 69 hours per week and 12 hours per day, and establishes statutory minimums of time permitted workers of whatever age to eat the food they have brought from home. M.P. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 32, eldest son of the 6th earl of Shaftesbury, has proposed a stronger measure, the House of Commons rejected Lord Ashley's bill July 18 by a vote of 238 to 93, but Parliament adopts the Factory Act over the opposition of Tories and of many Whigs who subscribe to the laissez-faire principles expounded by Adam Smith in 1776; it sets up a system of paid inspectors, but the new law applies only to textile factories and its safeguards are inadequate (see 1840).
Merchant-philanthropist John Mullanphy dies at St. Louis August 29 at age 75, having made himself a millionaire.
New York trade societies join to form the General Trades' Union. Trade unionism begins to supersede workingmen's political parties, but the movement will collapse in the financial panic and economic depression 4 years from now (see 1834; 1864).
South Carolina nullifiers offer Delaware gunpowder manufacturer Eleuthère Irènée du Pont $24,000 in cash for 125,000 pounds of powder, but du Pont rejects the offer (see 1814; 1834).
The Philadelphia & Reading Railroad chartered April 4 includes some lines begun in 1831 (see 1842).
The Camden and Amboy Railroad begins service between Bordentown and Hightstown, New Jersey, and then between Philadelphia and New York, using the John Bull locomotive put together 2 years ago by mechanic Isaac Dripps. The 11-ton British-built steam locomotive pulls cars carrying passengers five-sixths of a mile north from Bordentown on the Camden & South Amboy November 1 to pioneer rail travel in New Jersey. Iron rail has come in from Britain for the line and the rails are spiked directly to wooden sleepers (cross-ties) for the first time anywhere in the world; the line will be extended to Hightstown and reach South Amboy next year, but until a through line is completed across New Jersey in 1834, passengers will travel by steamboat between Philadelphia and Bordentown and between South Amboy and New York. The line will remain in service until the 1860s, but when projecting points of the cowcatcher devised by Dripps are found to impale animals on the right of way the prongs will be replaced by a heavy bar set at right angles to the rails.
Steam locomotive pioneer Richard Trevithick dies in poverty at Dartford, Kent, April 22 at age 62 and is buried in an unmarked grave.
The Andover & Wilmington Railroad chartered in Massachusetts will join with the 3-year-old Boston & Lowell and other roads to create the Boston & Maine, with 4,077 miles of track in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and New York.
The British ship Lady of the Lake strikes an iceberg May 11 en route to Quebec; 215 passengers and crewmen are lost.
The first cargo of U.S. ice for India leaves Boston to begin a voyage of 4 months and 7 days (see food [Wyeth], 1825). His foreman Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth quit last year to lead an expedition to Oregon, where he hopes to start a salmon industry (see exploration, 1834), but Frederic Tudor has loaded his ship Tuscany with 180 tons of ice plus apples, butter, and cheese for Lord William Bentinck and the nabobs of the East India Company at Calcutta. Although half the ice is lost in transit while being unloaded, the voyage nevertheless makes a profit (see 1846).
English mathematician Charles Babbage, 41, proposes an "analytical engine"—a large-scale digital calculating machine that will go far beyond a "difference engine" that he proposed in 1822 (see Leibniz, 1672). Babbage will obtain some government financial support to develop his calculator but will finance the work largely with his own fortune (see 1842).
Mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre dies at his native Paris January 10 at age 80.
Chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich tests a large number of volatile substances, makes careful determinations of their vapor densities, and confirms Charles's Law (Gay-Lussac's Law) that equal volumes of all gases expand equally with the same increase in temperature (see 1826; Gay-Lussac, 1802). He will be one of the first to recognize what later will be called catalytic action.
Principles of Geology by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell, 35, elaborates on the concept of "uniformitarianism" advanced by the late James Hutton, denying that any tremendous convulsion was needed to produce the features of Earth's surface and suggesting, rather, that physical, chemical, and biological forces that are still at work produced those features over long periods of geological time (see Brongniart, 1811). Lyell's work flies in the face of fundamentalist religious teachings that the universe was created in a matter of days (see de la Beche, 1836).
Les Artistes contemporains by Paris-born archaeologist Charles Lenormant, 31, is based on studies he has made in Egypt and Greece.
Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juices and the Physiology of Digestion by William Beaumont will become a classic in clinical medicine (see 1822). The work illuminates the nature of gastric juice and the digestive process, establishing alcohol as a cause of gastritis (inflammation of the stomach's mucous membrane).
English-born Philadelphia druggist and patent-medicine manufacturer "Dr." Thomas W. Dyott, 62, acquires the Philadelphia and Kensington Glass Works. He has begun producing his own glass bottles, will expand his works into the largest such factory in America, and will build the town of Dyottville to house his more than 400 employees and their families (he uses large quantities of alcohol in his preparations but will forbid consumption of beverage alcohol in the town that employees will call "Temperanceville").
The Oxford Movement to restore High Church traditions of the 17th century in the Church of England begins July 14 at St. Mary's, Oxford, with an assize sermon on "national apostasy" preached by clergyman-poet John Keble, 41, who criticizes the suppression of 10 Irish bishoprics. Keble is supported by his London-born fellow at Oxford's Oriel College John Henry Newman, 32, whose "Tracts for the Times" begin appearing and who will preach at St. Mary's for the next 8 years on the need to secure for the Church of England a firm base of doctrine and discipline lest the Church be disestablished or abandoned by High Churchmen. Tractarians will arouse such opposition that many, including Newman, will feel compelled to leave the Church of England and become Roman Catholics (see 1845).
Religious, social, and educational reformer Ram Mohun Roy dies of fever at Bristol, Gloucestershire, September 27 at age 61, having come to England 4 years ago as unofficial representative of the titular king of Delhi. He is buried at Bristol by Unitarian friends with whom he has been staying.
French missionary François Gagelin is executed October 17 by order of Vietnam's emperor Minh Mang, who begins active persecution of Christians in the wake of a rebellion at Saigon, whose leaders have requested and received help from the Christian mission (see 1825). Many native converts will be executed in years to come, as will seven European missionaries (see 1847).
France's Primary Education Law, enacted June 28, gives the Church extensive control over the nation's primary schools.
West Point's superintendent Sylvanus Thayer, now 48, is relieved at his own request July 1 and will devote the next 30 years to supervising New England coastal fortifications and harbor improvements (see riot, 1826). President Jackson has gone over Thayer's head several times and reinstated cadets who were dismissed.
Printing press manufacturer Robert Hoe dies at New York January 4 at age 48, having built the first U.S. cylinder press. He leaves his business to his New York-born son Richard (March), 20, and his nephew Matthew Smith (see 1846).
The Destructive and Poor Man's Conservative begins weekly publication at London February 2 under the direction of Henry Hetherington, now 39, who continues the Poor Man's Guardian he began in 1831 for which he has twice been imprisoned. He will be indicted again next year and required to pay a fine of £120
The New York Sun launched September 1 by publisher Benjamin Day, 23, is the city's (and the world's) first successful penny daily (the competition charges 6¢ but Day is able to sell enough advertising to permit a lower price; see 1847). Day's son Benjamin will invent the Ben Day process for shading in printed illustrations.
Nonfiction: Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb; "Lecture on the Best Methods of Teaching the Living Languages" by George Ticknor, who will resign his chair at Harvard in 1835 and be succeeded by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Fiction: Droll Stories (Les Contes drolatiques) by Honoré de Balzac, whose stories are Rabelaisian; Eugenie Grandet by Balzac begins Le Comédie Humaine, an earthy chronicle that will run to more than 50 novels and countless shorter works as he labors 15 to 18 hours per day, sometimes standing at his writing table from midnight to dawn dressed in a monk's cassock, sometimes correcting his own proofs, often using the same characters in different books as he continues his tales of ambition, deceit, and egoism; Lélia by George Sand, whose novel Indiana last year asserted the right of women to love and independence. Sand begins a love affair with playwright-poet Alfred Louis Charles de Musset, 23, whose first book of poetry appeared 3 years ago and who has recently joined the staff of La Revue des Deux Mondes at Paris; "Ms. Found in a Bottle" by Edgar Allan Poe appears in the October 19 Baltimore Sunday Visitor; Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Retailored) by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, 38, appears in Fraser's magazine beginning in November. The history of clothing by Carlyle's "Professor Teufeldröckh" is actually a speculative and metaphysical discussion of creeds and philosophies.
Poetry: Pauline by English poet Robert Browning, 21, whose work is poorly received; Ahasvérus by French poet Edgar Quinet, 30, whose epic poem employs the legend of the Wandering Jew to symbolize mankind's progress through the ages; The Bronze Horseman by Aleksandr Pushkin.
Painting: The Gallery of the Louvre by Samuel F. B. Morse shows an art teacher surrounded by students at the Paris museum with pictures such as the Mona Lisa hanging on the walls, but efforts to make money by displaying the work are not successful, and Morse puts his hopes for financial gain in developing an electromagnetic telegraph (see communications, 1837); Buffalo Chase, Bulls Making Battle with Men and Horses by Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania-born painter-author George Catlin, 37, who 9 years ago saw a convention of Native Amricans at Philadelphia, went West to the Great Plains with his adventurous wife, and has gained the trust of the natives, many of whom feared they would die if they were sketched or painted; Fifty-three Stations of Tokaido (Tokaido Gojusansugi) by Japanese ukiyoe landscape painter Ando Hiroshige, 36. Pierre-Narcisse Guérin dies at Rome July 16 at age 59.
Photography pioneer (and tricycle inventor) Nicéphore Niepce dies at his native Chalon-sur-Saône July 5 at age 68.
Theater: Bertand and Raton, or The Art of Conspiracy (Bertrand et Raton, ou l'art de conspirer) by Eugène Scribe 11/14 at the Théâtre Française, Paris.
Parliament enacts the first British copyright law specifically for playwrights (see 1709; 1842).
London's 15-year-old Royal Coburg Theatre in Lambeth is renamed the Royal Victoria following redecoration and will become popularly known as the Old Vic.
Tragic actor Edmund Kean collapses on stage March 25 while playing Othello at Covent Garden and dies at his home at Richmond, Surrey, in his native London May 15 at age 44, having drunk himself to death (his son Charles, 20, inherits only his name but will use it to make his own career); playwright Hannah More dies at Clifton September 7 at age 88.
Opera: Lucrezia Borgia 1/26 at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, with music by Gaetano Donizetti; Eugenia Tadolini makes her Milan debut at the Teatro alla Scala 10/1 in the Donizetti opera Il Furioso.
First performances: "Die eerst Walpurgisnacht" by Felix Mendelssohn 1/10 at Berlin's Singakademie; Symphony No.4 in A major (Italian) by Mendelssohn 5/13 at London's Hanover Square Rooms.
Hymns: "God Save the Emperor" by Russian composer Alexis Feodorovich Lvov will be the Russian national hymn until 1917; "Lead, Kindly Light" by Oxford University church vicar John Henry Newman, who wrote the verses off Cape Ortegal December 11 of last year while becalmed on a voyage from Palermo to Marseilles (see 1868).
Munich's Festaalbau is completed for the royal palace; architect Leo von Klenze has designed it in renaissance style.
The balloon-frame house invented by Chicago carpenter Augustus Deodat Taylor will revolutionize U.S. residential construction. Taylor nails two-by-fours together to create a cage-like framework to which a roof and siding are nailed. Critics predict that prairie winds will blow the house up and away like a balloon, but it proves to be even sturdier than conventionial houses made like barns from heavy beams that require considerable time and experience to build. Within 20 years Taylor houses will be going up all over America as teams of amateurs use handy-sized precut lumber and cheap mass-produced nails to knock houses together.
A reaper demonstrated near Carthage, Ohio, by Maine-born inventor Obed Hussey, 41, will rival the 1831 McCormick reaper and beat it to market. Patented in December, Hussey's horse-drawn reaper features a sawtoothed cutting bar driven reciprocally by a crankshaft geared to the main wheels; the cut stalks fall onto a platform, from which they are raked by hand for binding. Production will begin next year. Hussey will open a large factory at Baltimore in 1838, and his reapers will be snapped up by grain farmers in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Illinois; McCormick's machine will not go into production until 1840 and will encounter resistance from farmers in hilly Virginia (but see 1847).
New York-born Lockport, Illinois, blacksmith John Lane, 40, cuts three lengths of steel from a saw and creates a plow with a polished steel moldboard that scours furrows without clogging, but he is unable to market his moldboard plow (see Deere, 1837).
Farmer's Register is published for the first time in Virginia with agriculturist Edmund Ruffin, 39, as editor. Ruffin has seen farmland eroded by tobacco growers and warns planters of the "growing loss and eventual ruin of your country, and the humiliation of its people, if the long-existing system of exhausting culture is not abandoned." "Choose, and choose quickly," says Ruffin, and he urges contour plowing, crop rotation, the use of furrows for careful drainage, and the use of lime and fertilizers to rejuvenate the soil.
A 3-year famine begins in Japan. The suffering will be even worse than in 1783.
French chemists Anselme Payen and Jean-François Persoz extract the enzyme amylase from malt and observe that it converts starch into sugar (see diastase, 1832; medicine [Schwann], 1835; Kuhne, 1878).
Antonin Carême dies at Paris January 12 age 48. The first great French chef, he has served royalty, Talleyrand, and London banker Baron (Nathan Meyer) de Rothschild, now 56 (for whom he reportedly invented the chocolate soufflé) in his brief but distinguished career.
A Swiss millright devises an alternative to the millstones that have been used to grind grain since ancient times; he replaces the stones with rollers and uses them to reduce the grain to flour more efficiently (see Sulzberger, 1839).
English working man Richard "Dickey" Turner, 43, urges "teetoteetoteetotal" abstinence from alcoholic beverages in a stammering speech at Preston; by some accounts it is he who unwittingly introduces the word teetotalism into the language, but the term T-Total will be found in the records of the Laingsburg, Michigan Temperance Society in this decade. The society has two forms of pledges, the Old Pledge (O.P.) permits moderate drinking and the T. pledge, whose adherents will be called "T-Totalers," requires total abstinence from "ardent spirits."
The new U.S. tariff law allows coffee to be imported duty free.
English-born New York entrepreneur John Matthews opens a shop at 33 Gold Street, begins manufacturing a compact apparatus for carbonation (by some accounts the first soda fountain), and introduces bottled carbonated water to local merchants (see 1891; Silliman, 1807; ice cream soda, 1874).
U.S. ice shipped from Boston finds a ready market in India, but the Indians have learned to make their own ice on a limited scale, sinking porous earthen pans filled with water into the Hooghly River near Calcutta on cold winter nights; the water, partially frozen, is taken out at sunrise and skimmed off into baskets, where it is stacked up to form a solid mass; the baskets are buried in a 14-foot excavation lined and covered with straw.
The diaphragm contraceptive invented by German physician Friedrich Adolphe Wilde is a cervical cap made of ivory, silver, gold, or latex from a wax mold of the patient's cervix, that will never gain much popularity. Women have used sponges for contraception since biblical times; the diaphragm is only marginally more effective than the lemon halves they have placed over their cervixes for generations and the spermicidal alum or zinc sulfate solutions they have introduced into their vaginas immediately after ejaculation.
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