it’s all an incredibly advanced, affordable and easy way to discover some very big news. of course, pregnancy tests have come a long way — women have peed on more than plastic sticks to determine whether or not they were with-child.
take ancient greeks and egyptians. they had women who suspected they might be pregnant urinate onto bags full of wheat and barely, and if they sprouted seeds, said lady was deemed pregnant. this was even considered a foolproof way to determine gender.
here, for example,
here’s a bit from the berlin papyrus
(historical medical documents) translated into english: “another test for a woman who will bear or a woman who will not bear. wheat and spelt: let the woman water them daily with her urine like dates and like sh’at seeds in two bags. if they both grow, she will bear: if the wheat grows, it will be a boy; if the spelt grows, it will be a girl. if neither grows, she will not bear.”
while that might sound utterly ridiculous, according to some modern studies — gender speculation aside — this process actually did manage to correctly identify 70 to 85 per cent of pregnancies.
uroscopy
was also a popular method, during the middle ages, which was a very non-scientific way to visually examine urine for anything unusual that could hint at pregnancy. this led to the phenomenon known as “
piss prophets
,” who would use “uromancy” — divination using urine, natch — to predict the future, through such elements as the colour and taste (!) of urine. they’d even examine the bubbles that would arise the moment the urine hit the divination bowl. (if the bubbles were large and distanced, the urinator was going to be rich, and if they were small and packed together, the urinator was doomed to be poor, ill or lose a loved one.) women would often visit piss prophets to find out if they were pregnant and what sex their child might be. if they were pregnant, the prophets believed their urine could rust a nail or change the colour of a leaf. having a baby
is
kind of magical, i guess?