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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lant I have heard that the piss-collection industry still exists, but collecting the urine fro
by logfromblammo 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lant
I have heard that the piss-collection industry still exists, but collecting the urine from portable toilets and extracting human urokinase from it, rather than using it for cleaners, glazes, and flavorings.
And, after searching for confirmation, here it is: http://www.toilets.com/Pharm/pharm_production.htm http://www.toilets.com/Pharm/pharm_production.htm
- kragen 9y agoWhile lant or leint seems to have been a real thing, either it was very rare in medieval times and later, or there was a more common word for it. It doesn't appear in Google Ngrams at all. (Neither does "old wash", the more common synonym from Addy's book.)
- salgernon 9y agoI'd like to recommend Jim Al-Khalili's excellent "Chemistry a volatile history" BBC documentary. At point point he describes how alchemists were attempting to convert urine to gold (hey, they're both yellow...) and by boiling it down accidentally discovered phosphorous. Ah, detailed on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry:_A_Volatile_History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry:_A_Volatile_History
- Turing_Machine 9y agoThere's also a lot about this in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, including the building and destruction of an 18th century incendiary munitions factory.