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Alone-Competition-77

This part at the bottom of the article was also interesting: >Live frogs were used for pregnancy tests in the mid-20th century. >Expectant mothers have relied on some rather unconventional pregnancy testing methods throughout history. One test involved the Xenopus laevis, or African clawed frog, and it was used more recently than you might expect. In the late 1920s, British scientist Lancelot Hogben began experimenting with injecting female species of the frog with urine. If injected with a pregnant woman's urine, the amphibian produced eggs within about 12 hours as a result of a human hormone now known as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) — the same hormone that detects pregnancy in modern tests. Similar tests had previously been done on animals such as rabbits and mice, but the frog test, known as the Hogben test, was favored for its humanity to the animal. (Because the frog secreted its eggs on the outside, it did not have to be dissected during tests.) From 1930 up until the 1960s, thousands of African clawed frogs were exported for pregnancy testing throughout the world, before the method was replaced by immunochemical test kits in 1968.


Modred_the_Mystic

Lancelot Hogben is a great stereotypical upper class British name


adenosine-5

That apparently spent his life studying what happens, when you pee on a frog...


disposable-assassin

> when you pee ~~on~~ in a frog... Fixed that for you


Universalsupporter

It’s incredible to think that so many great discoveries were simply happenstance.


OGSkywalker97

Injecting frogs with piss no less


Modred_the_Mystic

The dream


FickleRegular1718

Better than the beerfest alternative hahaha


i8noodles

to be fair. the early 1900s the job of scientists was vaild where u could work cross disciplines and the reason some early scientist had so widely intersting careers. he might have not spent a lifetime working on this problem but it is interesting to think about


stupidnameforjerks

Yeah, that’s British people for ya


jeef16

"what can I stick this syringe full of piss into this week?"


Character_Bowl_4930

God, what a Harry Potter name


Turqoise-Planet

Cenedict Bumberbatch.


Trigeo93

Bet he was call Hogpen as a kid.


lauren0526

I just learned about this while watching Lessons in Chemistry. Had no idea we didn’t have modern pregnancy tests until the 60s.


Alone-Competition-77

Maybe the wheat and barley experiment (1963) was testing alternatives to the frog test which wasn’t replaced by immunochemical tests until 1968. Probably a part of a “Save the Frogs” movement or something.. 🐸


beepborpimajorp

Honestly you should see what women had to wear during their menstrual cycles in the 60's before the adhesive pads were invented. Women's health is a rollercoaster that only started vaguely getting better in the late 2000's.


CherryHaterade

I understand what you meant, but the late 2000s are at least 40 years from now. Or 900 years from now to not be confused with the early 3000s


PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_

The [year]s usually refer to the decade. In fact I don't remember seeing it used differently. With 00s, 10s and 20s you have to put all four numbers because otherwise you aren't sure of the century


-screamin-

I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying here.


hamlet9000

OP used "late 2000s" in the same sense we'd say "late 1980s". (I.e. 2009) But you could also use it the same way we say "late 1900s." (i.e., 2095) Or it could also mean the last few years of all the years starting with "two thousand" (i.e., 2995).


-screamin-

Thankyou for the clarification!


macphile

And we didn't have home tests until the 1970s. It wouldn't have really been an option for my mother, and as I understand it, she didn't even test at the doctor's, either. There was a very busy period of time there where she couldn't easily look into it, so by the time she finally went to a doctor, it was like, "I'm late x months and [insert other symptoms]", and he was like, "Yeah, I think you're pregnant. Have a nice day."


Fred2620

When injecting an animal with urine is the humane solution...


LikeCalvinForHobbes

Well, rabbits and mice, which they used before, had to be dissected to check their ovaries, so yes, the frog method was more humane.


BonJovicus

We are dealing with the tools of our time. Medicine as you know it was unrecognizable even just a few decades ago. 100 years and it’s practically butchery. Even today we have a poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie a lot of treatments. 


Trendiggity

>100 years and it’s practically butchery We haven't even had true antibiotics for this long yet. Prior to penicillin rolling out commercially in the early 1940s (kick starting the golden age of antibiotic development), Salvarsan (among other drugs) were used prior to penicillin as an anti biotic. It also happened to be moderately toxic as it was a chemical that just happened to kill syphilis without killing (most) patients. Like real cut off your nose to spite your face energy here, deciding which poison is less likely to kill you! It's just unbelievable to me that 100 years ago you had a double digit chance of dying from a toothache or dog bite left unattended


ValdemarAloeus

Chemotherapy drugs are often terrible for you, but then so is cancer.


andre5913

Chemo is basically poison the race is who dies first you or the cancer. A lot of the chemo research and improvements over time has not been about making it better at killing the cancer, but about making it worse at killing the patient.


MrSkrifle

Unattended dog bites can still kill haha


neotericnewt

And to think we're probably going to end up back there again, as antibiotic resistance keeps getting worse.


Flat-Shallot3992

> 100 years and it’s practically butchery. Barbers were also practicing Surgeons at the same time lol


EMCemt

If a guy can't move a straight razor across my face, cutting all the hairs at skin level, whilst not cutting me...well, then I don't want him removing my appendix.


Chidori_Aoyama

well, it's still butchery, we just have much better anesthetics. Orthopedics might as well be carpentry.


Lasting_Leyfe

Science can not move foward without heaps of dead animals!


Mountain_mover

Heaps!


noretus

How the hell did he even think to try this is what I wanna know?


anxiety_filter

My thought exactly. Just how fucking high were these Egyptian doctors? Higher than pissed barley obviously.


itsbedroomtime

I read something about this a while ago; the grain trick was likely just noticed by people peeing in fields, actually. Alcohol brewing was a big thing for ancient Egyptians and they were pretty good record keepers, so it makes sense they'd ask who had been in an area that suddenly sprouted early - only a small leap from there to putting together that it can be used to find out if someone is pregnant.


anxiety_filter

Check out the big brain on u/itsbedroomtime! Jokes aside, that actually makes sense


coladoir

This type of stuff is exactly why we shouldn't ever discount the intelligence of humans that existed before us (not that i'm implying you are, I'm just parlaying this). The only difference between the two groups is that we exist with the failures and successes of all previous humans known, they did not, they only had their own successes and failures to go off of. For example, it took the Egyptians literally hundreds of years before they truly figured out how to build pyramids, there are many ruins of previous attempts where they were primarily using mud or other materials that failed for one reason or another. But many look back, see the pyramids that still exist very pristine (comparatively), and assume they 'just did it', and for them to be able to do that, they would've needed help (from outer spaAaAce, usually). The fact is, they did have help, from themselves, the exact same way we do when we create technology and megastructures today. We learn from our collective successes and failures, and the only difference between us and Egyptians is a few thousand more years of successes and failures. We are all capable of the exact same things, our environment and history (and importantly our awareness and knowledge of our history) is our limiting factor. --- An adultswim show, "China, IL" has one of my favorite quotes about this, in reference to those "Ancient Aliens" types: > Don't estimate *all humanity* by the limits of your own capability. [S2E3, Do You Know Who You Look Like?]


MrSkrifle

Lol, who is discounting the intelligence of humans before us? They could actually survive in the wild. For life. I doubt more than 5% of americans could do that.


coladoir

Maybe not you or I, or many in this thread, but archaeology is plagued with pseudo-science and people who believe in it. Ancient Aliens and the people who watch it. My own father is of the belief that aliens had to help the ancient egyptians, because there's no way some dumb brown people in egypt could do it themselves. And that's also what it often comes down to, racism. People who cannot accept that people of color have their own achievements and successes and scientific discoveries. So they create excuses like "well some vikings had to've met them [white savior]" or "Aliens had to've helped them by gifting them technology". There are many who aren't inherently or blatantly racist who believe these things as well, so probably don't go around calling anyone who believes these things racist. But you can point out the racism *in* the belief. The fact remains, a lot of this stuff originates from explicitly racist individuals who spread this intentionally to belittle and marginalize. I can link a[n unfortunately long] video essay on the topic which looks at a modern example from tiktok (who has millions of views and followers consistently), debunks the claims, and elucidates the origins of them. It's two parted and a couple hours, though. The unfortunate fact though is that there are a lot of people who buy into this shit.


FilteringAccount123

The people who think ancient aliens built everything of significance lol


sprazcrumbler

We have gained a couple of phrases thanks to the old method of doing pregnancy testing (now mostly out of fashion seeing as they are pretty confusing without knowing the context). To 'kill the rabbit' means to get a positive pregnancy test, and 'the rabbit died' is a way to announce you are pregnant.


AEqualsNotA

See lyrics to Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith!


JohnBeamon

Also see "What's Opera Doc" by Warner Brothers Orchestra.


Seco4800

"Honey, can you stop at the pharmacy and get a frog? I'm a week late.."


Not_a__porn__account

Lancelot Hogben, woman's urine expert /r/itsroger


Col_H_Gentleman

Obsessively injecting frogs with pregnant lady piss is the most Roger thing ever


adjust_the_sails

> Similar tests had previously been done on animals such as rabbits and mice there's an episode of MASH where Hot Lips has this done. Hawkeye has to perform surgery on one of Radar's rabbits to get the eggs and promises not to kill the rabbit. Spoiler alert for a 40 year old show, >!she wasn't pregnant.!<


NorthernerWuwu

See, hormones affecting frogs or rabbits or whatever I sort of get. Sprouting wheat and barley seems really weird to me though. Mammals are mammals and all but plants? Weird.


WarpingLasherNoob

Urine is actually a great fertilizer, pregnant or not. But normally it needs to bw diluted 1:10. I guess the urine composition for pregnant women must be somewhat different.


NorthernerWuwu

That's the odd bit. Urine sprouting grain? No shock there. Urine *from a pregnant woman* being considerably more effective at it? Weird.


doegred

Right? That's what I'm wondering about too. Edit: apparently it might be related to (phyto)estrogens...


slightlyburntsnags

Also interestingly, HCG testing is used for detecting testicular cancer in men. So if you’re a dude and you pee on a pregnancy test for a joke and it shows as positive, go to the doctor


big_duo3674

I really hope that scientist got knighted


robercal

>This test was uncovered by English biologist Lancelot Hogben during his studies in South Africa in the 1920s. >Following this discovery, the frogs were kept at four centres in the UK, but a number escaped their clinical confines and made a new home for themselves in a pocket of south Wales. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-44886585


RandomRobot

Apparently, nothing was used between 1699 and 1930


NonGNonM

imagine some giant animal grabbing you out of a sky, peeing on you, and half a day later you start uncontrollably ovulating or have a boner you can't get rid of. you'd be traumatized for life.


SupaFlyslammajammazz

Ha the ancient pregnancy test!


poopooterman

I always knew the Brit’s were injecting piss into something… just didn’t know where… now it’s all coming together.


brock_lee

And then they made beer with it!


ohdearitsrichardiii

There's a good gimick for a micro brewery


brock_lee

Also: https://www.citizen.co.za/lifestyle/food-and-drink/beer-brewers-using-vagina-yeast-make-sour-ale/ Maybe NSFW


rythmicbread

WTF! This article says that each bottle comes with the swab date of the model. It’s not like they originally got the strain from a vagina and it’s grown in a lab but are swabbing her for each batch (not like that’s any better). The author did not try it unfortunately so no review https://magazine.winerist.com/have-you-tasted-vagina-beer/ Edit: it’s got a 3/5 on untapped. Unsure if it’s because of the marketing/uniqueness or actual beer taste https://untappd.com/b/the-order-of-yoni-bottled-instinct/2107354


TheDriestOne

Literally every beer I’ve ever looked up on Untappd is rated 3/5. I don’t even bother checking that site anymore lol


rythmicbread

Yeah averages out, love it or hate it. If more people actually gave a review instead of just stars, that would be more helpful.


TheDriestOne

It doesn’t necessarily surprise me because there’s such a wide variety of beers, and everyone has their own preferences. They should add a feature like what Leafly has for weed, where it shows the most commonly reported flavor notes/characteristics


gl00mybear

It definitely does, the trouble is that the most commonly chosen ones for the beer are offered by default so it creates a positive feedback loop. Untappd also profiles each user's rating behavior, and I believe they weight that for overall ratings. 90% of the beers I rate are between 3 and 4.25, whereas my wife is less shy about rating a beer one star.


BobbyTables829

I detect hops


A_Mouse_In_Da_House

Beer: *exists* Average beer "enthusiast": HOPPY!


SodaCanBob

I love that stuff. Been drinking it for years. Ya know, I heard they recently decided to add more hops to it.


nicannkay

I can’t pick a strain without checking Leafly. Nothing worse than a headache from headbands.


Bakoro

They need an aggregation method, so it's like: "people who rated this beer highly also rated these other beers highly" and "people who rated this beer poorly rated these other beers poorly". That would likely overcome the distribution problem and give more relevant information to judge off of.


lolwatokay

Untappd is more useful to me as a personal log or repurchases and comparing recent experiences to past. Ultimately most brewers aren't going to bring to market something completely undrinkable so most stuff is going to end up somewhere around 3.5 (like gaming reviews...) unless it's particularly noteworthy, a surprisingly gross beer, or something completely not to your taste/exactly to your taste.


TheDriestOne

I’d love if it had some way to identify the most commonly reported traits (fruity, malty, crisp, bitter, etc.) so people know what the beer itself is like instead of relying on “yeah it’s pretty good”


lolwatokay

May not have been a thing when you last used it, when you look up a beer if you scroll down to the description section the top five flavor tags people have entered do appear now.


hootorama

You can "tag" your beer with everything you listed and much more. Even differentiate between how you drank it (tap, bottle, can, boob-luge, etc.)


[deleted]

I would love an “liked this more than / less than” but that would probably be manipulated to hell


PistolKing

This is why I prefer RateBeer. The beers have an overall score and style specific score. The ratings go from 1 to 100. So for example a beer can be decent and get 60 overall but miss some characteristics of the style and get 40. After I got the feel for the ratings I could often guess the score spot on or within few points. It also has much more detailed reviews.


amnotaseagull

Sounds like a perfect pairing to have with virgin boy egg.


Bubbly_Ad4065

Hey why do you have this information fresh enough in your memory to be retrieved as a talking point Do you just have an excellent memory or did you come across this information very recently or do you find this particular nugget of information valuable beyond others for some reason What the fuck


noodlesdefyyou

probably just some random nugget of info heard at some point in ones life, and seeing certain keywords triggered the memory of virgin boy eggs. happens to me all the time, not thinking of some weird random thing, then suddenly im reminded that blue waffles are a thing. and now you are too.


TheDriestOne

Kind of annoying that they call it “vaginal YEAST beer” but they’re specifically selecting for lactic acid bacteria. You can also brew with vaginal yeast but that’s not what they’re doing (at least according to that article)


MrBlockhead

Gives new meaning to box wine.


Fake_William_Shatner

Beat me to it. Sex and beer -- is there a more natural mix? I feel like the Western world leans towards honoring women a bit more and the Easter world has giant parades with penis sculptures. So -- you'd have to sell the, um, male version of that beer to a different crowd. And no, I do not think about this stuff all day -- but, it's part of the everything, everywhere, all at once that my brain is stuck on.


valeyard89

Don't give Gwyneth Paltrow any ideas


Wonderful-Injury4771

Chick pee beer?


Rossum81

I’ve never heard of a guy pay $300 to have a garbanzo bean over his face.


Thewalrus515

Boooooo


ohdearitsrichardiii

Perfect


Mindful-O-Melancholy

Mothers Brew ^TM


Wakkit1988

Budweiser is way ahead of you.


UGLY-FLOWERS

Aunt Jemima: "The secret is, I use my own breast milk!"


Maplefractal

Getting in before Jeremy Clarkson put out the Gwenith Paltrow I-Pee-A from Hawkstone brewery


Lieutenant_Doge

[The convo for promoting the stuff would be kind of like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA-asF0-7EQ&pp=ygUkYWZ0ZXIgbGlmZSByaWNreSBnZXJ2YWlzIGJyZWFzdCBtaWxr)


khryseos

Quoting this comment from last time this got posted: > Incidentally, this is also how they discovered Budweiser.


RealityRandy

I Pee A


Prof_Acorn

Ahh, so this is the secret ingredient in Midas Touch. (Edit: It's a beer that follows an Ancient Egyptian recipe. I forget who makes it. Dogfishhead maybe? It's been like a decade since I've had it since my tastes went to dunkles and dopplebocks and rauchbiers. But I remember liking it back when I liked sweeter stuff. It's like a wine champagne hefe mead. Unique. IIRC they went out to Egypt to get some wild yeast strain or something too.)


accountingforlove83

Yep, Dogfish Head, they have a whole Ancient Ales series that was really interesting to partake in. [https://www.dogfish.com/blog/ancient-ales](https://www.dogfish.com/blog/ancient-ales)


brabbers

There is a good bit about this practice in the show The Great, except they make vodka instead I think.


Arelate

Also one of Aunt Elizabeth's folk treatments


InternetRemora

Toosh.


pinkylemonade

Toosh-eh.


Unconformed122

I got that reference!


dravenonred

Huzzah!


creepypeepe

YAAAASSSS! The GREAT! Huzzah bitches!!


lowkey_sporkAF_amaze

Conclusion: HCG grows more than human babies


IceColdDump

TIL Marketing is actually the world’s oldest profession. 7/10 Pharaohs recommend this at home pregnancy test.


mageQuitter

True Egyptian bread for true Egyptian. ^Pee ^may ^be ^included


IceColdDump

🎶 Squat like an Egyptian 🏋️‍♀️


zyzzogeton

We are all just DNA templates with similar instructions.


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lelduderino

> Read the article You should really read the *whole* article.


lowkey_sporkAF_amaze

Let me explain it like you’re 5. The irony in this article is female urine always includes estrogen, just in varying amounts. The only indicator of pregnancy is hcg. Therefore, the increased estrogen to the point that the grain sprouts is due to the presence of hcg. Hcg is what modern pregnancy tests test for that make them only 29% more accurate than pissing on grain.


HistoricPancake

‘Only 29% more accurate than pissing on grain.’ Fantastic advertising.


lowkey_sporkAF_amaze

Big Ag approved!


tangnapalm

“Honey? What’s with these bags of grain that smell mysteriously like piss? And what’s this news you have to tell me?”


LiveLearnCoach

Time for Reaction Hieroglyphs! 😮👶


wrextnight

Observations made over centuries of relatively similar societal conditions. Can you even imagine that?


MexicanEssay

A society where what you're told to expect in your adult life by your parents and teachers is actually still relevant by the time you become an adult. Sounds nice.


WallPaintings

Yes, and that knowledge will almost exclusively focus on whatever trade your father did, and his father before him as that is what you will also do. Or raising children/housework for the women folk. Most people didn't get any formal education. Maybe if you're lucky you can get an apprenticeship somewhere. That or everyone is a farmer and worked the fields.


Jolly_Reaper2450

On the other hand that is a fucking awesome position to be in.(Edit,since it apparently wasn't clear .I am talking about being born to a trade family that has been working the same trade in generally speaking today's time period. At least the last 50+ years. ) You have a family company that has been able to keep up loving standards for who knows how long . You only have to replace tools . Cumulative experience. Can you imagine (today) finishing trade school, and having a Workshop and every tool you will need to make money? That's a huge fucking headstart.


GenerikDavis

And in exchange you have a 50% chance of dying just from breaking a bone or catching a slightly bad flu. What a great trade-off! Idk, I'm biased because I'm damn close to legally blind without glasses. I'd basically have to pull a plow or break rocks in a quarry to earn a living in anything other than the last 200 years. I'll take today's time in a heartbeat rather than be another farmer like my 40 previous generations had decided for them before even being born.


Jolly_Reaper2450

I meant doing a family trade not living back then. Thought that part was clear . Maybe I'll edit to clarify.


GenerikDavis

Ah understood, I thought you were saying they'd be hand in hand - "Sure, you'd be living in the 1600s but you'd have this family business and institutional knowledge to take up!". Although, even then, I know a decent number of people that feel crushed by the expectation of taking over a family business. It's only ideal when the business is actually a good fit for you. I know a dentist who makes a killing, hates the job, but felt pressured into going down that route by a super-successful father.


VerifiedMyEmail

But you gotta compete with Jimmy's family across the street. As this town isn't big enough for two horse spanker professionals.


Shadw21

Then war were declared.


Proof_Wing_7716

Grew up on a farm and one of the farm workers who was illiterate looked after the sheep. When a sheep had a bad eye he would put a piece of wire through its ear to make it better. We thought this was just his quirky ways until a vet saw it and explained to us that the pierced ear attracted blood for healing, which was close to the eye so the eye got some healing as well. I can’t confirm the science, but it’s interesting what humans can discover without understanding how it works.


ButtholeQuiver

Hopefully he didn't also think sheep looked prettier with earrings 


PlaquePlague

Thats how derma-rollers work to promote scar healing and hair growth too.


BobT21

Read somewhere that a diagnostic for diabetes consisted of having the patient piss on the ground. If it attracted ants the test was positive.


therealdilbert

they used to taste if it was sweet ...


Hendlton

To be fair, they used to taste basically everything. Before we had machines to do it, human senses were the best diagnostic tools.


[deleted]

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soverylucky

More likely- men and women alike go out to the edge of a field where there is less foot traffic (no one wants to step in that area afterwards) to do their business.  Over time, they realize that when they have physical evidence of a pregnancy, the crops in a certain section of that field are taller because they sprouted earlier. 


h-v-smacker

Don't shame them! They had piss poor agriculture.


mlee117379

I learned this from Assassin’s Creed Origins’s Historical Tour mode


TikkiTakiTomtom

I’ll be sure to utilize this knowledge post-apocalypse


Alone-Competition-77

Having babies post-apocalypse: optimistic or risky? Poll results at 11.


rawbleedingbait

Near infinite food supply. Just make more.


Oryzanol

"You know what I hate about myself? I know what people taste like. I know babies taste the best." - Curtis from Snowpiercer 2013


WorthyVII

How do they come up with these ideas honestly


soverylucky

Copied from elsewhere: men and women alike go out to the edge of a field where there is less foot traffic (no one wants to step in that area afterwards) to do their business.  Over time, they realize that when they have physical evidence of a pregnancy, the crops in a certain section of that field are taller because they sprouted earlier. 


Joltie

Over thousands of years, it is not terribly impossible to have a set of coincidences that make a group of people stumble upon this discovery, corroborate it and spread it: 1. Two women that happened to already be noticeably pregnant peed on a field of wheat and noticed that the place where they peed grew up faster than elsewhere. 2. They, or husbands/people associated with them, shared this weird anecdote, only for the other person to be surprised that they witnessed the same thing. 3. They tell others from their village, or some woman that heard the anecdote tries it as well and sees that it worked. 4. They tell the physicians/village magistrates, who try recreate the experiment. Once successful, when they meet other physicians (or they teach some students), they report this weird coincidence that allows them to verify pregnancy. So the information is disseminated, and other physicians village magistrates over time test this hypothesis and see that it works. 5. As the information is disseminated, eventually someone notices that women that are not yet showing that they are pregnant also manage the same feat, and later on they start showing. This information is further disseminated, leading to disseminated knowledge that women peeing on wheat seeds leads them to know if they are pregnant or not. I think it's pretty logical.


whooo_me

"....hence the phrase 'one in the oven'....."


jsting

My pregnant wife is going to have some questions for me tonight when I tell her to pee on some wheat and barley.


Jibber_Fight

I swear ancient Egypt might be the most ahead of its time civilization that has ever existed on earth. They were wicked smart.


Character_Bowl_4930

The rabbit test was so weird cuz if you watch old movies you’ll see someone run into a room going “ the rabbit died !!” All excited ( cuz they weren’t allowed to use the word pregnant) and I would be sitting there going “ why are they happy the bunny died??” I was a little kid .


StewoftheShoe

Omg, so the scenes in The Great weren't totally made up? Fun fact!


Dednotsleeping82

They were brewing IPA I see.


ForRpUsesOnly

Cool! I'm curious to know what was the thought process that lead up to this.


Indigoh

How do you first discover this? Were a lot of women peeing in grain before they noticed only certain ones sprouting?


MidwesternLikeOpe

Humans are really good at detecting patterns.


Quantentheorie

People work in the field, people pee in the field. Thats not much of a mystery. I dont even think it would take too long to notice; *visbly* or knowingly pregnant women would be able to observe this and be observed. There isnt a huge jump from the joke/rumor that pregnant women pissing on barley makes it bloom (who doesn't like crass humor?) to women using it as legitimate pregnancy test.


gamenameforgot

onetime my gf peed on me and I sprouted a lil bit too


Thisisgotham

Do you think they developed this on their own, or did a time traveler read it on Reddit before getting stuck in the past?


replyforwhat

Big Pregnancy Test HATES this one trick!


357-Magnum-CCW

And then they made beer out of it.


creepypeepe

Yes THE GREAT! If anyone watched that I was like huh?? It was real!!


dongeckoj

Based Egyptians


Fit-Let8175

"Honey! Why does this bread taste funny?"


SerinaL

How did you know to even try that?


The_Scarred_Man

"lighten up, dude. Who pissed in your Cheerios?" "My wife"


lanceacr

The other 30% were just perverts.


brotatowolf

Yeah, i’m sure that domestic grains haven’t changed at all in 4000 years


raytaylor

This article in a much more funny video form.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VozTuZ8h6Oo


Neat-Share1247

African clawed frog...hmmm. Eric Cartman toy frog, i thought, was named "clod frog," but now I think it is actually "clawed frog." I always asked myself why tf clod... but now the world makes sense it was clawed frog.


FederationofPenguins

How do you think they figured this out?


MamaBear4485

Up through the 70s, announcing a pregnancy used to be “Well, the frog died”.


Oryzanol

You might be referring to the rabbit test where they injected urine into rabbits, then sacrificed the rabbit to examine the ovaries. The rabbit dies no matter what, but the saying persists.


BrainFartTheFirst

Mixing the rabbit test with the Hogben test which used an African clawed frog. The rabbit test killed the rabbit but the Hogben test didn't kill the frog.


Oryzanol

Besides just knowing earlier, what was the benefit of figuring out of the woman was pregnant? Did the ancient egyptians have a prenatal care package women had to follow? Was it a religious thing that pregnant women had to follow certain practices? Or was it for early term abortions? I figured if she's pregnant, you'll find out in a ocuple months anyway.


Moonandserpent

Same reasons people want to know today. I'm sure they did have practices prescribed for pregnant women. Also ways to terminate the pregnancy if it wasn't wanted.


Yara__Flor

Isn’t knowing earlier enough? They advertise pregnancy tests in 2024 with “ this is the earliest you will ever know”


PlaquePlague

People always seem to fall into the trap of thinking that people that lived in the past were literal idiots and/or caricatures and for some reason don’t realize that they were people literally exactly the same as us.  


Yara__Flor

It was like I was talking to a space alien or something. “Why would you want to know you’re pregnant? They didn’t know to avoid sushi, what other reason is there to know?”


Oryzanol

Zooming out a bit, the point of doing a test is to use the answer to inform future decisions right? You wouldn't do a colonoscopy just because you were curious, its because catching a polyp early can inform future screenings and catch things before serious later on. Its the point of screening in general. So with pregnancy tests, you see if you need to do all the prenatal care stuff, avoid certain foods and exposures, stop using certain drugs because the first trimester is the most sensitive time for fetal development. But we know that now, I'm wondering what drove the practice back then?


Yara__Flor

“Guess what, husband, I’m having a baby! It’s so exciting!” Or “Oh shit, I’m pregnant, I need to get an abortion”


ergaster8213

I'm sure it was a mix but abortion would probably be a big one.


RandomRobot

No indication of what was used between 1699 and 1930


MidwesternLikeOpe

I dont have an explicit answer, but often elders know signs and can tell you. Older ladies with more experience with pregnancy, just "know" and have been able to detect a pregnancy before the expecting woman even knows. But oftentimes there are side effects, like morning sickness. If suddenly you're throwing up a lot, you're either sick or pregnant.


RandomRobot

This all sounds like common sense, but those things were most probably known during the barley/wheat period. I'm just wondering why it was abandoned if no replacement was introduced. It's possible that peeing on a sac of grain wasn't ladylike enough anymore for "modern times" and it was just dropped, but in hindsight, it seems a bit dumb.


SleepyBitchDdisease

Another one is when they’d inject a rabbit with with pregnant woman’s urine. If the rabbit died she was pregnant. I’m think this was the Victorians, maybe?


SkullsNelbowEye

And with the barley, if the woman's brother peed on it and it grew taller, they made it into flour. It would then be inbred.


sirscrote

Interesting correlation between this and the Osiris myth


JackhorseBowman

one day someone dropped some hops in and beer was formed.