Although you may be familiar with hCG pregnancy test paper, the history of pregnancy test paper is quite fascinating.
Over time, various cultures have developed their own methods to determine whether a woman is pregnant, some of which may be quite strange to modern readers.
The oldest known pregnancy test can be traced back to ancient Egyptian civilization.
This test is described as a fragment in Carlsberg papyrus and more completely in Berlin papyrus (also known as Bruce papyrus).
In these medical documents dating back to the New Kingdom, it is mentioned that in order to determine whether a woman is pregnant, she should pee on a pile of barley and wheat grains respectively, and ancient Egyptian women should pee on barley grains (part one) (Sanjay Acharya/CC BY SA 4.
0) and urine on wheat grains (below) (marked Ne *** itt/CC with SA 4.
0) to detect pregnancy.
If neither of them germinates, then the woman is not pregnant.
If the barley germinates, the woman will give birth to a boy.
On the contrary, the germination of wheat indicates that the woman is pregnant with a baby girl.
1963 shows that the pregnancy test in ancient Egypt may be reasonable after all.
It seems that in 70% cases, pregnant women's urine causes grains to germinate.
On the other hand, the urine of pregnant women and men did not cause grain germination.
Egyptian compatriot Elizabeth Jericho Bowman, 1872. (CC 3.0), the ancient Greeks had some very unusual pregnancy tests.
For example, one of them is to insert onions into women's * * * overnight.
If the woman is not pregnant, her breath will smell like onions the next morning.
The basic principle of this test is to believe that a pregnant woman's uterus is unobstructed, so the smell of onions will reach her mouth.
On the contrary, the uterus of pregnant women is "sealed", thus inhibiting the upward spread of odor.
Another change is to put perfume linen on genitals, which is a modern print depicting Agnodice, an ancient Greek midwife and obstetrician. It is said that she disguised herself as a man to become a doctor.
According to Hippocrates' suggestion, another test is to let women drink a mixture of honey and water before going to bed.
If the woman has abdominal distension and colic at night, it means she is pregnant.
To be fair, in the Middle Ages, pregnancy tests became more diverse and possibly even weirder.
For example, the so-called "pee prophet" appeared in this period.
These people claim that they can judge whether a woman is pregnant by observing her urine.
This is through the use of a popular urine examination method called uroscope, a medieval urinary wheel.
In addition, medieval doctors also used other forms of urine-based pregnancy tests.
One of them is to inject needles into women's urine.
Pregnant women will rust red or black if they are pregnant, and the other involves mixing urine with alcohol.
When alcohol reacts with some protein in the urine of pregnant women, this test may indeed have some success in confirming pregnancy.
It was not until the first half of the 20th century that human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) was identified as a pregnancy marker.
This hormone exists in the urine of pregnant women. Through animal experiments, hCG is an indicator of pregnancy.
In these experiments, a woman's urine was injected into an immature female mouse/rat/rabbit.
Then kill it and dissect it to observe its ovaries.
If the urine is pregnant, hCG will cause Nimar to enter high temperature, which has a significant impact on her ovaries.
However, these tests are not very accurate because hCG levels must be high enough to cause these changes.
Finally, modern pregnancy tests began to develop in the 1960s, and by the end of 1970s, pregnancy tests began to be sold in the United States.
It is said that these tests are easier to use and provide accurate results.
Modern pregnancy tests show that this woman is pregnant.
(Nabokov /CC BY SA 3.
0), above: The Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth by Max Ray herrick.
Source: Public domain, Author: Wu Mingren, I am a college student with a bachelor's degree in archaeology.
My interests range from "traditional" to "radical" interpretation of archaeological/text/picture data sets.
I believe that the knowledge input from two extreme advocates will help to read Mor.