23. Pee Was a Valuable Commodity in Ancient Rome
Nowadays, ammonia is extracted with chemical processes that don’t involve pee. Ancient Romans understood ammonia’s benefits, but lacked our modern science. So they got ammonia from the most readily available source back then: urine. Not only was pee used to clean mouths in the Roman world, it was put to a variety of other uses. The laundry trade, for example, relied heavily on stale urine. In giant public laundries known as fullonica, dirty clothes were placed in vats, where they were soaked in stale urine. Then workers – usually slaves – stomped on them until the stains came out.
Other industries, such as agriculture and hide tanning, used not only urine, but urine mixed with feces. Urine was so important that pee collection was a big business. As a result, public chamber pots or big vats where anybody could stop and urinate, were commonplace. In addition to dental hygiene, industrial, and commercial uses, the ancient Romans also used pee in medicine. Pliny the Elder, for example, praised stale urine’s effectiveness in the treatment of diaper rashes. He also wrote that fresh urine could heal “sores, burns, infections of the anus, chaps and scorpion stings“.