Taking a cue from Coturnix's Weird Sex Friday fun entry (har), here's a snippet from Ananova which is making the blogosphere rounds. The world's oldest surviving condom has gone on display at the Tirolean County Museum in Austria. From the article...
The reusable condom dates back to 1640 and is completely intact, as is its orginal users' manual, written in Latin.
The manual suggests that users immerse the condom in warm milk prior to its use to avoid diseases.
Warm milk? Warm milk? I expect that said soaking would increase the pliability of the condom for milady's pleasure. The confluence of dessicated, crinkly pig intestine and sensitive human tissues is a winceworthy thought. It's not inconceivable that some bovine immunoglobulins, leukocytes, and lactoferrin would be intact in warm unpasteurized milk, so perhaps these antimicorbial agents provided some defense against annoying STDs, hence the folksy prescription. I wonder how effective this was against an especially noisome spirochete?
So, if one is striving for authenticity at the next renaissance faire, then get thee and thy meat forthwith to the nearest sausage casing vendor!