Urine: Encyclopedia II - Urine - Other uses

Urine - Other uses

Aztec physicians used urine to clean external wounds to prevent infection, and administered it as a drink to relieve stomach and intestine problems.

The ancient Romans used urine as a bleaching agent for cleaning clothes and even isolated reports as a teeth whitener (supposedly originating in what is now Spain).

In Siberia, to communicate with the spirits, the Koryak people drank the urine of another who has consumed fly agaric (an entheogenic mushroom that is occasionally fatally poisonous), or of one who has in turn drunk urine of like source. Sometimes, the urine of reindeer that had eaten fly agaric would even be drunk. The potency of the mushroom does not decrease significantly until around the seventh drinker, because the muscimol from fly agaric is essentially unaltered after being secreted from the kidneys. Not only does this conserve the mushrooms, but it also eliminates unpleasant side-effects caused by muscarine, which does not pass on through urine. Likewise, reindeer licked the ground where there is urine containing fly agaric from the religious ritual. Despite these rumors, it is highly doubtful that any animal would eat the Amanita mushroom because its red and white markings let animals know that it is a poisionous mushroom.

Urine has applications in gardening and agriculture as a fertiliser. Gardeners often recommend a dilution of 10-15 parts water to one of urine for application to pot plants and flower beds during the growing season; pure urine can chemically burn the roots of some species. Urine typically contains more than 50% of the nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium content of whole sewage and is widely considered as good as or better than commercially-available chemical fertilisers or stabilised sludge from sewage plants. Urine is also used in composting to increase the nitrogen content of the mulch, accelerating the composting process and increasing its final nutrient values.

Urine is also being actively considered as a fertilizer for use in food crop agriculture in developed countries. Studies into its feasibility and safety usually indicate that it is an acceptable alternative to chemical fertilisers and stabilised sludge. However, the technology to implement its use on a large scale has not been developed or is considered too expensive. There are also concerns over its safety as regards the potential for transmitting infectious disease and refluxing xenobiotic compounds (associated with toilet cleaning products and prescribed drugs expelled in urine) in the human food chain. Proponents of adopting urine for this use usually claim the risks as being negligible or acceptable and point out that sewage causes more environmental problems when it is treated and disposed of compared with when it is used as a resource. Critics generally agree that more research is needed into how the resource is to be collected, processed and handled.

There are a limited number of individuals that use urine as a crop fertilizer. These include organic farming cooperatives and eco-villages where special urine-diverting toilets with collecting tanks are installed. Many of these also employ concepts such as greywater irrigation and the composting of fecal matter Many are the subject on ongoing feasibility studies sanctioned by governments and private organisations. These people generally reject safety concerns over its use on food crops provided that it is used with common sense. For example, application to fruit trees is considered safer than to bushes and especially root crops. It is also considered sensible to cease application at a safe interval before harvesting. However, the use of urine for this purpose is even rarer than its use on ornamental gardens.

In developing countries, the application of pure urine to crops is also rare. However, whole, untreated sewage, termed night soil is often applied to crops and is considered essential. It is worth noting that this practice is not new and has been applied, along with crop rotation schemes, for thousands of years.

In Japan, urine used to be sold to farmers who would process it into fertilizers.

Shipwrecked or people otherwise adrift at sea for long periods often resort to drinking their urine when no rainwater is available, seawater being unsuitable. People stranded in deserts often also drank urine to prevent life-threatening dehydration from setting in. However, this desperate measure achieves little to delay death from thirst, particularly if it causes vomiting.

The use of urine as a medical treatment or daily health regimen is uncommon. Purported beneficiaries of the 'urine cure' include Mohandas Gandhi, Jim Morrison, and Steve McQueen. Its medicinal properties have been observed and is also used in China as a part of holistic medicine.

During World War I, Canadian soldiers without gas masks during a gas attack urinated on cloth and wore the cloth over their mouths and noses. Upon contact with the urine, the fabric of the mask would produce a chemical reaction which would turn the fabric impervious to chemical attacks.

In recent times, the Port-a-John corporation of Utica, Michigan, USA has developed a filter to collect medically significant proteins from users of their chemical toilets.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Other uses", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki