It’s difficult to know how much these were used as I had quite a bit of trouble finding out much info on them – I suppose people just didn’t talk about that kind of thing. I would guess it was pretty embarrassing to go and buy one too, especially for women.

They were advertised in the ordinary newspapers as well as the medical press, but the ads didn’t make a big thing of them – they were usually just mentioned in a list of other goods. I suspect that for the reasons you say, they weren’t majorly popular.

But anyway…I wonder how many people actually used these. I would find it very hard to waddle around with one of these under my crinoline, even if it was well concealed. I’d be worrying about it – well, spilling. And it would be hard to use, too, possibly.