Hourglass era

“The purpose of an incubator is to maintain the tempera-
ture at a uniform level. In the form shown at left, gas is used as the heat-giver. A thermometer is placed at A, and the indicator, B, shows the right strength of gas flame. The asbestos bell-shaped cover, C, hanging at the end keeps swinging above the flame when the gas is the desired strength. The holes in the side of the case are for ven-
tilation purposes.” — from The Care of the Infant After Birth, in The Book of the Home, Volume IV.

Left: Four-pointed penile ring

Device as illustrated in J.C. Milton’s Pathology and Treatment of Spermatorrhoea (1887). “For more than 200 years — from the 1710s to the 1940s — Western culture experienced a profound anxiety about masturbation and its cousin, spermatorrhoea (wet dreams). The concerns began with the publication of the pamphlet Onania early in the Eighteenth Century, gained force through the following century and a half, and peaked during the Victorian and Edwardian eras…” — Law, Self-Pollution, and the Management of Social Anxiety, by Geoffrey P. Miller