It may not be in favor today but urine was used in medicine for millenia.
In Rome, Richard Sugg at the Guardian tells us, Pliny the Elder recommended fresh urine for the treatment of "sores, burns, affections of the anus, chaps and scorpion stings", while stale urine mixed with ash could be rubbed on your baby for nappy rash. In early-modern Europe numerous medical luminaries went further. Pioneering French surgeon Ambroise Paré noted that itching eye-lids could be washed in the patient's urine – provided that it had been kept "all night in a barber's basin" first.
The father of chemistry, Robert Boyle, advised certain patients to drink every morning "a moderate draught of their own urine", preferably while "tis yet warm".
Read the many and unusual uses of urine
Subscribe to the newsletter
[x]
Stay in touch with the scientific world!
Know Science And Want To Write?
Apply for a column: writing@science20.com
Donate or Buy SWAG
Please donate so science experts can write
for the public.
At Science 2.0, scientists are the journalists,
with no political bias or editorial control. We
can't do it alone so please make a difference.
We are a nonprofit science journalism
group operating under Section 501(c)(3)
of the Internal Revenue Code that's
educated over 300 million people.
You can help with a tax-deductible
donation today and 100 percent of your
gift will go toward our programs,
no salaries or offices.
- Contrary To The Poltical Narrative, A Lot Of Government Science Funding Doesn't Go To Science
- The End To Universities Using Graduate Students As Piggy Banks Is Near
- Gen X Is Getting Its Own Captain America
- FDA Goes After Illegal Kratom 7-OH Supplement Sellers
- Agricultural Science Wins In The One Big Beautiful Bill
- More AI In Health Care Could Save Lives
- Activin-A: Muscle Weakness In Cancer Survivors May Be Treatable
Interesting insights from outside Science 2.0
© 2025 Science 2.0
Comments