Ancestor’s Wisdom: Urine

I wonder how many of you are familiar with our ancestors’ wisdom with such accuracy on their understanding of the unique chemical property the urine has. Yes, our ancestors used the urine not only for the laundry but also for tanning leather and treating the wool as well for centuries.

Indeed, I was fascinated with the essential role of the urine for the laundry in ancient Rome I learned through the visit to Ostia Antica, located at the outskirt, 2 to 3 miles away?, of Rome downtown, I bet many of you already visited its spectacular archaeological site while at Rome - I am sure you all know but as its name says, it was Rome's seaport at the mouth of the River Tiber but due to silting the site it is now a few miles away from the sea!-, or nearby Civitavecchia, coastal town northwest of Rome where all the cruise ships from Italy start its cruise.

Anyhow, one of two impressive things I still recall through the visit to Ostia Antica was there was a huge tub where they used to fill with the urine to soak the cloths first before they wash and dry. An interesting thing I learned more through this laundry was it tells about the social status then; the only upper-class peoples were able to afford to have two pairs of the cloths so that they could alternate to wear while one of two was sent for the laundry, perhaps once or twice before being worn out to be thrown away, which took months to get it done in general. So, the definition of the upper (middle?) class of the society at that time was based on whether you could have two pairs of clothes or not.

So, the ancients found the urine works not only for the laundry/cleansing of the cloths but also do magic work to soften the leather besides removing hair and flesh from animal hides- you don’t have to go to Morocco to see the world-renown leather tanning with the urine!!-. Indeed, I heard they still use the urine to make the softest leather as well as fluffy wools no other chemical matches to make the best leather and wool in Italy. Yes, they still do!!!

Nevertheless, I wonder how many of you would remember our ancestors as well wisely used the urine as a medication as a so-called ‘old home regimen’ in Korea to take care of rough skin - 손 튼다? - in the winter season. I heard old women at the village used to collect young children’s urine to soak their hands to improve rough skins in harsh winter. So, our ancestors were already wise enough to take advantage of its unique medical value by experiences, which we will have to be proud(?) of.

Besides, the most expensive, the world-best French cosmetic cream - antiaging? - is still made exclusively with the hormone (?) extracted from the horse urine- I confirmed through one of the executive board members of a world-leading French cosmetic company! -.

BB Lee

P.S. I still recall one stupid event my father caused among his factory workers to collect their urine separately to use exclusively as special fertilizer for his gardening. I was one day asked to appeal to my father to stop this yearly(?) event for his hobby. Indeed, my father was a successful businessman/industrialist to possess quite a few factories to produce oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, acetylene, etc but at the same time, he was a deadly serious horticulturist so that he wanted to use urine as a natural fertilizer to breed(?) the special kind of roses. So he closed the regular toilets at the factory on its season but installed a temporary outhouse to collect the urine in special containers for the gardeners, which annoyed busy factory workers in the middle of work. But no one dared to complain to him but I figured out to become furious to demand to my father and without his permission, I conducted to remove this outhouse to collect the urine only to make their boss happy. I recall his chauffeurs as well as his gardener was so happy not to handle such smelly urine to make special organic fertilizer.