The two of us recently talked about John Rock with Malcolm Gladwell on his podcast, Revisionist History.

Rock’s life and work is the subject of our second book, The Fertility Doctor: John Rock and the Reproductive Revolution.

Rock was one of the most prominent infertility specialists of the mid-20th century. In 1944, he and his research assistant Miriam Menkin were the first researchers ever to report the in vitro fertilization of a human egg. A decade later, in the 1950s, Rock collaborated with Gregory Pincus on the development of the oral contraceptive.

A practicing Catholic, Rock spent much of the 1960s trying to convince the Catholic Church — ultimately unsuccessfully — to end its ban on birth control by approving the use of oral contraceptives.

Listen to the podcast here:

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/36-dr-rocks-taxonomy