"It may, however, be helpful to make two points on the language used by the church writers to describe contraceptive behavior, as these points bear on the frequency with which such behavior is encountered, and to add to these points two medieval estimates of the incidence of contraceptive behavior. The common practice of the scholastic writers was to identify artificial contraceptives by the comprehensive but blind phrase “poisons of sterility.” The repetition of this circumlocution of Augustine is not evidence that the theologians using it were not familiar with particular forms of such poisons. The phrase was an easy way of designating contraceptives without imparting detailed information about them and without becoming involved in an appraisal of their efficacy."