John Rock

John Charles Rock (March 24, 1890 – December 4, 1984) was an American obstetrician and gynecologist. He is best known for the major role he played in the development of the first birth control pill.

He was the founder of the Rock Reproductive Study Center at the Free Hospital for Women in Brookline, Massachusetts and a Clinical Professor of Gynecology at Harvard Medical School. He was appointed director of the Sterility Clinic at the Free Hospital for Women and would hold this position for thirty more years.

Early life John Charles Rock was born on March 24, 1890, in Marlborough, Massachusetts. He was born into a Roman Catholic family and was one of four children. He then attended and graduated from Harvard University Medical School in 1918.

Career Rock originally planned to specialize in nervous disorders. However, he decided to change it to obstetrics and gynecology. In addition to practicing as a medical doctor, he was an active researcher, striving to discover new knowledge and offer more help to his female patients. In collaboration with Marshall Bartlett, Rock conducted research on the schedule of ovulation and the sequential stages of the endometrium during a woman's menstrual cycle. Enovid, the brand name of the first pill, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and put on the market in 1957 as a menstrual regulator. In 1960, Enovid gained approval from the FDA for contraceptive use.

Rock was seventy years old when Enovid was approved for contraceptive use.

Although it has been claimed by some journalists that Rock was to blame for adding "unnecessary" breaks in the use of the pill (instructing one week of taking placebo sugar pills every month), Jane Dickson of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare of RCOG stated in an interview that there were many more reasons for a placebo period, including as a recovery period from the then high dosage of hormones from the pill, and as reassurance that in having menstrual flow (although it was not a true period) one was not pregnant.

Clinical trials The initial clinical trials were codeveloped by Rock and were funded by Katherine McCormick, a collaborator of Sanger who dreamed of the creation of a female-controlled contraceptive method. With this funding, Pincus joined Rock to observe contraceptive effects of progesterone on Rock's female patients.

In 1954, the two doctors began their first trials on fifty women in Massachusetts. Rock and Pincus used an oral contraceptive pill containing synthetic progesterone supplied by a pharmaceutical company, Searle.

It was noticed after that the transportation of pills from Searle was contaminated, due to a mixture of synthetic estrogen with the progesterone. This female-controlled contraceptive method, known as the Pill, became a rapid, nationwide use for protection against pregnancy.

Later years In later years, Rock and Menkin would receive many letters from people about Rock's early optimism for how long it would take for IVF to be used in the clinic. Rock was said to have been filled with sadness as he had to inform women that the IVF technology would not be ready in time. He had then predicted that it would be decades before in vitro fertilization was used to successfully make women pregnant. After realizing he could no longer contribute to the IVF project, Rock decided to move on. He wanted to develop a more successful way of opening blocked fallopian tubes, therefore his last idea before abandoning his research was the creation of artificial or plastic fallopian tubes.

Rock retired in 1969 from his practice. After his retirement, he founded the independent Rock Reproductive Study Center, later renamed as Rock Reproductive Clinic, Inc., in Brookline, Massachusetts. This center was known to focus on fertility, sterility, and the development of the oral contraceptives, now known as the birth control pill. He remained working at the clinic until around the late 1960s and eventually sold his practice to Dr. John H. Derry of Newton who renamed it to Derry-Rock Clinic in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Personal life Rock married Anna Thorndike in 1928. They raised five children.

After retiring, Rock moved into a farmhouse in Temple, New Hampshire. He died in Peterborough, New Hampshire on December 4, 1984, at the age of 94 from myocardial infarction.