Sarah's Mullings and Musings

Friday, April 27, 2007

Disgusting Knowledge

I have to do a little research on the excretion system, and I ran across some rather disturbing facts about urine. Being a scientist and all, I thought I'd share these odd facts with my friends:

1) Ancient Romans used urine to bleach their clothes and occasionally, to whiten teeth
2) To communicate with spirits the Koryak people would drink the urine of a person who had consumed a certain kind of mushroom
3) In England, stale urine was used for cleaning and to flavor ale
4) Historically, urine has been used as an antiseptic when no other antiseptics were available.
5) The urban myth that urinating on a jellyfish sting relieves the pain is incorrect. At best, it is ineffective, and may actually make the injury worse.
6) The yellow color of urine was thought to come from gold, and alchemists spent a lot of time trying to extract gold from urine
7) Pregnant mare urine is the source of estrogens, namely Premarin
8) Historically, urine has been used to clean wounds, prevent infection and prescribed as a drink for those suffering from stomach and intestine problems. People who have supposedly benefitted from the "urine cure" include Mohandas Gandhi, Jim Morrison and Steve McQueen

Is everybody sufficiently grossed out now?

1 Comments:

At 7:17 PM, Blogger Maggie said...

hey, I took Premarin for a while! Gross :)

 

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