“Moschi odorem deperditum restitui posse, si in loco aliquo, ubi urina et excrementa alvina putrescunt, detineatur, apud autores legimus.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 768.)
“Fit, ut Moschus longo tempore æmittat odorem, quem tamen recuperat si irroretur cum pueri urina, vel si suspendatur in latrina humana.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 276.)
CHEESE MANUFACTURE.
“A storekeeper in Berlin was punished some years ago for having used the urine of young girls with a view to make his cheese richer and more piquant. Notwithstanding, people went, bought and ate his cheese with delight. What may be the cause of all these foolish and mysterious things? In human urine is the Anthropin.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Gustav Jaeger, Stuttgart, August 29, 1888.)
“En certaines fermes de Suisse on se sert, m-a-t’on-dit, de l’urine pour activer la férmentation de certaines fromages qu’on y plonge.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Bernard to Captain Bourke, dated Cannes, France, July 7, 1888.)
Whether or not the use of human urine to ripen cheese originated in the ancient practice of employing excrementitious matter to preserve the products of the dairy from the maleficence of witches; or, on the other hand, whether or not such an employment as an agent to defeat the efforts of the witches be traceable to the fact that stale urine was originally the active ferment to hasten the coagulation of the milk would scarcely be worth discussion.
OPIUM ADULTERATION.
The smoker of opium little imagines that, in using his deadly drug, he is often smoking an adulterated article, the adulterant being hen manure; he is thus placed on a par with the American Indian smoking the dried dung of the buffalo, and the African smoking that of the antelope or the rhinoceros.
EGG-HATCHING.
In the description of the province of Quang-tong, it is stated that the Chinese hatch eggs “in the Oven, or in Dung.”—(Du Halde, “History of China,” London, 1741, vol. i. p. 238.) See the same statement made in Purchas, vol. i. 270.