Actually, urine had been used in the manufacture of dye as far back as the 5th century CE. The Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, also known as the Rossano Gospels, was created 1,500 years ago as a Byzantine copy of the New Testament. Analysis of the tome revealed that the pages derived their purple hue from orcein—a dye extracted from the fungus Roccella tinctoria, and then processed with fermented urine.
In 2018, university students in South Africa announced that they had used human urine with lime—calcium hydroxide powder—to create environmentally-friendly bricks. The story again highlighted the uses our pee has enjoyed over thousands of years.
Historic uses for urine date back 5,000 years to India, where the drinking of pee for rejuvenation, a practice known as Shivambu, has been described in sacred yogic texts.
Frenchman Ambroise Paré (1510–1590), the most famous surgeon of the 16th century, advocated urine for bathing itchy eyelids, provided that it had been kept "all night in a barber's basin" first.
Knocking back a glass of pee was also advocated by Anglo-Irish chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691), who advised some of his patients to drink every morning "a moderate draught of their own urine," preferably while "tis yet warm."
Today, this so-called liquid gold is being studied by scientists as a source of electric power. For example, urine-eating bacteria can create a strong enough current to power a cell phone.
Technology has also been developed to generate hydrogen fuel from urine. Indeed, pee power could fuel hydrogen cars because urine contains two compounds that could be a source of hydrogen: ammonia and urea.
Noted English physician Thomas Willis (1621–1675), a founding member of the Royal Society, was said to have instructed a female patient to imbibe her own warm urine against "extreme sourness" in her throat.
The Italian Leonardo Fioravanti (1517–1588), a barber-surgeon who influenced the development of reconstructive surgery, apparently witnessed a man's nose sliced off in an argument, and—believing in urine's antiseptic powers—promptly peed on the fallen organ before stitching it back on.
Henry VIII's surgeon, Thomas Vicary (c. 1490–1561), seen here receiving a charter from the English monarch, recommended that all battle wounds should be washed in urine.
Urine played a useful role in the development of early cosmetics. English physician and cleric William Bullein (c.1515–1576) advised those "whose faces be unclean" to wash their skin with "strong vinegar, milk and the urine of a boy."
In the following century during the First World War, many combatants used cloth patches soaked in their own urine as rudimentary gas masks (the ammonia in the urine counteracting the chlorine in the gas).
Not all physicians hit the mark. George Thomson (c. 1619–1676) recommended the use of urine against the plague. The disease, meanwhile, killed millions.
Urine's cleansing power was such that rather than use soap, early European launderers preferred to use urine for its ammonia to get tough stains out of cloth.
In early modern Europe, the perceived benefits of urine were championed by several well-known medical luminaries.
Sébastien Matte La Faveur (1629–1714) was quite particular in prescribing urine. In 1671, the French chemist was recorded patiently collecting vast quantities of unadulterated children's urine ("about sixty pints [from] little children who drink very little wine") to make a volatile salt from it, presumably to treat wounds.
The belief by some in urine's cleansing powers was witnessed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark of the 1804–1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition of the Western United States. During their epic trek, the explorers described Native Americans bathing in urine daily.
On occasion, urine served as a life-saving liquid substitute. In the early half of the 1500s when Portuguese-born Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the world, his crew had a limited water supply and resorted to drinking their own urine.
Recently, adult stem cells isolated from urine, termed urine-derived stem cells (USCs), have attracted growing interest, as they possess many desirable properties for cell-based therapy.
The tanning industry also used pee in the manufacturing process. Soaking animal skins in urine made it easier for leather workers to remove hair and bits of flesh from the skin. Pictured is an engraving depicting saints Crispin and Crispinian, the Christian patron saints of cobblers, curriers, tanners, and leather workers.
Actually, the use of urine for washing purposes was nothing new. In Roman times, vats of urine collected from the public were taken to a fullonica (laundry), diluted with water, and poured over dirty clothes. Next, a worker would stand in the tub of urine and stomp on the clothes, similar to a modern washing machine's agitator.
Robert Boyle, mentioned earlier in this list, had also noted how urine was highly valued by dyers. In fact, stale pee was so vital to the textile industry of 16th-century England that huge casks of it were shipped from across the country to Yorkshire, where it was mixed with alum to form an even stronger mordant (a substance that helps bind dye to cloth) than urine alone.
Did you know that prior to the early 20th century, urine was used to make gunpowder? Manufacturers took advantage of the nitrogen naturally found in pee to make potassium nitrate, the key ingredient for ballistic firepower.
The Romans used urine as an effective mouthwash, ammonia being the active ingredient to freshen breath.
Similarly, urine toothpaste served to whiten teeth for those who desired a gleaming, snow-white grin, according to the Roman poet Catullus.
Meanwhile, the Hindu belief in urine as a refreshing and rejuvenating pick-me-up was demonstrated as recently as 2020 in New Delhi when members and supporters of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, a Hindu organization, drank cow urine as they attended a gaumutra (cow urine) party, ostensibly to fight against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Sources: (Smithsonian Magazine) (The Guardian) (Live Science) (BBC) (National Center for Biotechnology Information) (National Institutes of Health)
See also: Celebrities who died from coronavirus
By the mid-18th century, urine wheel color charts were being published for use by medical students as a guide for the strength and dilution of urine, and its corresponding medicinal applications.
The ancient Greeks and Romans certainly imbibed urine for medicinal purposes. The application of the golden nectar was also employed in treating a range of ailments. Pliny the Elder, for example, recommended fresh urine for the treatment of "sores, burns, affections of the anus, chaps and scorpion stings."
Stale urine was preferred by the textile industry because the ammonia in it was stronger, thus producing a more robust dye.
And in the cosmetics industry, urea, a naturally-occurring molecule found abundantly in mammalian urine and shown to have antibacterial and anti-fungal properties, remains an important ingredient in medicinal skin creams.
Would you drink your own urine? Thousands do, and, in fact, we've been imbibing pee for millennia. Urine has enjoyed an impressive range of practical and medical uses for much of history. The golden liquid's perceived health benefits, plus its proven cleansing properties, made it a drug of choice for many, prescribed by physicians and used by surgeons for centuries. And today, scientists are experimenting with this waste fluid as a possible source of electricity, and as a way of generating hydrogen fuel. So, what exactly is the power of pee?
Click through and discover the odd uses for urine.
The power of pee: odd uses for urine
The many uses for our waste fluid
HEALTH Body
Would you drink your own urine? Thousands do, and, in fact, we've been imbibing pee for millennia. Urine has enjoyed an impressive range of practical and medical uses for much of history. The golden liquid's perceived health benefits, plus its proven cleansing properties, made it a drug of choice for many, prescribed by physicians and used by surgeons for centuries. And today, scientists are experimenting with this waste fluid as a possible source of electricity, and as a way of generating hydrogen fuel. So, what exactly is the power of pee?
Click through and discover the odd uses for urine.