Charles Knowlton

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Knowlton

Charles Knowlton (* 10. May 1800 in Templeton , Massachusetts ; † 20th February 1850 in Winchendon , Massachusetts) was an American physician and sexologist , who through his book The Fruits of Philosophy or The Private Companion of Young Married People to Became a pioneer in the field of birth control .

Life

After attending the Academy in New Salem (Massachusetts) , he studied medicine at Dartmouth College and graduated in 1824 with a Doctor of Medicine (MD). At that time he was serving a 60-day prison sentence for grave robbery after he had dug up a body for an illegal autopsy , a controversial part of his medical training, which he considered necessary.

After he wrote the book Elements of Modern Materialism in 1829 , he published the book The Fruits of Philosophy or The Private Companion of Young Married People in 1832 , a first reliable treatise on taboo subjects such as birth control, reproductive health and spermicidal douching and the associated knowledge of the time. The written "in a chaste style" pamphlet published anonymously, and led to Knowlton for the determination of his authorship because of obscenity was reported and a fine of at that time considerable 50 US dollars had to pay. He was then tried for the second time in another city and, after his lawyer , whom he later described as incompetent, persuaded him to plead guilty, he was sentenced to three months of forced labor.

After his release, a second edition of The Fruits of Philosophy was published by his friend the freethinker and theologian Abner Kneeland , this time Knowlton's name appearing on the book cover and another chapter written during his incarceration. After a third edition was published, charges were brought against him again, with two trials ending with so-called “hung juries”, as the jury could not agree on a conviction. In the fourth edition, Knowlton advised that women should resist their own sex drive before the age of seventeen. The trials ultimately resulted in The Fruits of Philosophy achieving national recognition and selling more than a million copies in the United States.

When the book was reprinted in 1877 UK by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant , a three year long press-covered process ensued. This press coverage ensured that the font was widely used. The Daily News noted in 1877, "A few hundred buyers over many years have grown to over a hundred thousand buyers in a matter of weeks." In fact, 200,000 copies were sold during the process. Even the falling birthrate in the UK has been linked to the book.

Background literature

  • S. Chandrasekhar: Reproductive Physiology and Birth Control: The Writings of Charles Knowlton and Annie Besant . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. 2002.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elements of Modern Materialism (Google Books)
  2. ↑ Peter Gay : Education of the Senses: Sexuality in the Bourgeois Age. CH Beck, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-406-31552-6 , pp. 272f.
  3. ^ Reproductive Physiology and Birth Control: The Writings of Charles Knowlton and Annie Besant (Google Books)
personal data
SURNAME Knowlton, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American doctor
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Templeton , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1850
Place of death Winchendon , Massachusetts