There is some interest in attempting to trace the origin and history of the condom, though it seems impossible to do so with any precision.  It is probable that, in a rudimentary form, such an appliance is of great antiquity.  In China and Japan, it would appear, rounds of oiled silk paper are used to cover the mouth of the womb, at all events, by prostitutes.  This seems the simplest and most obvious mechanical method of preventing conception, and may have suggested the application of a sheath to the penis as a more effectual method.  In Europe, it is in the middle of the sixteenth century, in Italy, that we first seem to hear of such appliances, in the shape of linen sheaths, adapted to the shape of the penis; Fallopius recommended the use of such an appliance.  Improvements in the manufacture were gradually devised; the caecum of the lamb was employed, and afterwards, isinglass.  It appears that a considerable improvement in the manufacture took place in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and this improvement was generally associated with England.  The appliance thus became known as the English cape or mantle, the “capote anglaise,” or the “redingote anglaise,” and, under the latter name, is referred to by Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century (Casanova, Memoires, ed.  Garnier, vol. iv, p. 464); Casanova never seems, however, to have used these redingotes himself, not caring, he said, “to shut myself up in a piece of dead skin in order to prove that I am perfectly alive.”  These capotes—­then made of goldbeaters’ skin—­were, also, it appears, known at an earlier period to Mme. de Sevigne, who did not regard them with favor, for, in one of her letters, she refers to them as “cuirasses contre la volupte et toiles d’arraignee contre le mal.”  The name, “condom,” dates from the eighteenth century, first appearing in France, and is generally considered to be that of an English physician, or surgeon, who invented, or, rather, improved the appliance.  Condom is not, however, an English name, but there is an English name, Condon, of which “condom” may well be a corruption.  This supposition is strengthened by the fact that the word sometimes actually was written “condon.”  Thus, in lines quoted by Bachaumont, in his Diary (Dec. 15, 1773), and supposed to be addressed to a former ballet dancer who had become a prostitute, I find:—­

        “Du condon cependant, vous connaissez l’usage,
                    * * * * *
        “Le condon, c’est la loi, ma fille, et les prophetes!”

The difficulty remains, however, of discovering any Englishman of the name of Condon, who can plausibly be associated with the condom; doubtless he took no care to put the matter on record, never suspecting the fame that would accrue to his invention, or the immortality that awaited his name.  I find no mention of any Condon in the records of the College of Physicians, and at