Rubbers haven't always been made of rubber.
A bit of history on the side : Even the ancient Greeks knew about condoms. It is said that in 1200 BC, Minos, the King of Crete, used condoms made from goats' bladders.
In 1554 (2,700 years later), the Italian doctor, Gabriele Fallopio, recom-mended linen bags soaked in medicines as a protective measure against the infectious disease syphilis, which seafarers had been bringing back from America.
Wearers' comfort was significantly improved by the use of sheep's appen-dices and fish bladders in the mid-17th century. This idea has been cred-ited to the British doctor, Dr. Contom, after whom the condom was named. This, though, has still not been proved conclusively.
In the 18th century, Casanova, the most famous lover of all time, used condoms for all kinds of amusing social games. In his day, condoms were still made by hand, and the luxury variations were lined with velvet and silk. They were, of course, used several times over, dried in between and, when necessary, meticulously repaired with bone glue and animal intes-tines.
In a letter to her daughter, the Marquise de Sévigné described the condoms of the time as »a bulwark against pleasure, but a cobweb against danger...«. Using the precious condoms was not exactly satisfying in those days.
Not until the 19th century did condoms make their big breakthrough, using a substance which had already been processed in Europe for 100 years - rubber. Charles Goodyear gave the plant juice of the rubber tree a permanent elasticity, developed the vulcanisation process in 1839 and went on to invent the car tyre. In 1855 he produced the first rubber condom. It still had a lengthways seam and a wall thickness of 1-2 m.
1912 was what we have come to know as the annus mirabilis of the condom. One man perfected the production of condoms by dipping glass bulbs into the raw rubber solution. This technique enabled him to manufacture extremely thin, seamless condoms featuring a closed teat end. The man's name was Julius Fromm.
» Fromm's Act« was the first branded condom in the world. By 1919, 150,000 were being produced every day. A packet of three cost just 72 pfennig. The »Frommser« went on to conquer the bedrooms of the nation.
Thanks to its special, highly sensitive lubricant film, Fromms is still one of the biggest-selling condoms in Germany today.