User:Adrianagardner/sandbox

Early use of pessaries dates back to the ancient Egyptians, as they described using pessaries to treat pelvic organ prolapse. The term 'pessary' itself, is derived from the Ancient Greek word 'pessós,' meaning round stone used for games. Pessaries are even mentioned in the oldest surviving copy of the Greek medical text, the Hippocratic Oath, as something that physicians should never administer for the purposes of an abortion: "Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion." The earliest documented pessaries were natural products. For example, Greek physicians, Hippocrates and Soranus, described inserting half of a pomegranate into the vagina to treat prolapse (https://www.glowm.com/section_view/heading/contemporary-use-of-the-pessary/item/25). It was not until the late 1500s that the first purpose-made pessaries were used when Ambrose Paré was described as making oval shaped pessaries.