Odd Object

The 2010 excavation of a trash heap from about 1810 near New York's City Hall turned up a puzzling three-inch-long (7.6-centimeter-long) cylinder of animal bone. "We thought it might be a pin case or some sort of spice grinder," said archaeologist Lisa Geiger in an email, "but we weren't confident in either of those ideas."

The mysterious cylinder was sent to storage at Brooklyn College along with the ceramics, glassware, and butchered bones that were also found at the site.

When Geiger later volunteered briefly at Philadelphia's Mütter Museum—home to all manner of historic medical curiosities—she came across a clue that helped her solve the puzzle of the cylinder. It was a similar-looking object from the mid-19th century, identified as a metal vaginal syringe.

"Once I had that to go on, I started to realize there were many of these syringes recovered from 19th-century sites, usually made of metal, glass, or early Bakelite plastic," she says. "My research revealed how many women began adopting vaginal syringes for douching as a hygienic practice and as a contraceptive. Ads for syringes used a lot of coded language suggesting they were for 'married women'—approved sexually active women—and could be used with a variety of astringent tinctures."

Now that the cylinder's place in history has been established, Geiger hopes a museum will find a place for it in the future.