Urine collectors: why was war impossible without these people?

Many professions that were once customary have long since sunk into oblivion. So no one has been working as urine collectors for a long time, but once they were very important people, without whom many workshops would have stood up.

The urine collector in the Middle Ages was not so much a respected person as a necessary one. People with large containers on their backs went from house to house and collected the contents of chamber pots, which they then carried and sold to a variety of workshops. There was a demand for urine, and what a demand!

The main buyers of urine were tanneries and fullers. The ammonia solution, which was obtained from the contents of the pots, dissolved the sebum and helped remove the remains of meat and hair from the skin. The skin was soaked in an ammonia solution in large vats, after which it became softer and more convenient for dressing.

Natural fluids from public toilets were also sold. Probably, everyone knows the expression "money does not smell" - it is associated with the name of the Roman emperor Vespasian (I century). It was he who introduced a tax on public latrines, which received income from the sale of urine. It was used not only for leather production, but also for washing. After standing for some time in the vat, the urine turned into the very caustic solution that perfectly removed sebum, sweat and dirt from the linen. There was quite a smell, of course, of a freshly washed shirt, but it was clean!

Urine was also bought by fabric dyers - it gave the dyed product brightness and durability. After such treatment, clothes could be washed without fear that they would shed.

By the way, in modern life, dyed fabrics also need to be fixed; only caustic soda is used instead of the contents of the pot. But the essence of the process remains the same.

"Ammonia solution" was also used in military affairs. Saltpeter was needed to make black powder. Of course, potassium nitrate is also found in nature, but a lot of it was needed for the wars of that time. Therefore, there was a popular recipe for saltpeter from the ashes and ... urine.

“Whoever wants to produce good gunpowder, you need to mix a good supply of decayed human urine of the highest grade with ashes, leaves and straw, and put it in a saltpeter pit. And water that pit with urine or slop every week, so that the pile in the pit is slightly damp, but not raw, and stir it every week. After a few months, stop adding urine, and as the moisture evaporates and the heap ripens, a white coating of saltpeter will appear on the surface of it, which can be recognized by taste.”

Do you know what kind of urine was considered the highest? That was the urine of a child. It was collected in a separate container. And it was used not just anywhere, but only for the most important and expensive industries. For example, for the production of cosmetics and the best gunpowder. And they also whitened their teeth with it!

In one of the satires of the ancient Roman poet Catullus (1st century BC), the dandy Ignacy, who boasts of the whiteness of his smile is ridiculed: “You brush your teeth and red gums to a shine, like a Spaniard barbarian, and your mouth is full of urine.”

Now only healthy lifestyle fans use urine, thank God.