“When ladies desire to know whether or not they are enceinte, Paullini recommends that they urinate in an earthen vessel wherein a needle has been thrown. Let it stand over night; should the needle become covered with small red spots, the woman is enceinte; but should it be black or rusty, she is not. To determine whether she is to have a son or daughter, dig two small pits; put barley in one, and wheat in the other; let the enceinte lady urinate into both; then cover up the vessels with earth; if the wheat sprout first, it is to be a son; if the barley sprout before the wheat, it is to be a daughter.”—(Paullini, p. 163.)
Or, throw a pea into each parcel of urine; then the pea which germinates first, etc., etc. “Aut injiciatur lens in unius cujusque urina et cujus efflorescit, ille culpa caret,” is the method suggested by Danielus Beckherius.—(“Med. Microcos. aut Spagyria Microcosmi,” pp. 60, 61, quoting from still older authorities.)
He gives still another plan: “If you wish to determine whether a woman is to bear children, pour some of her urine upon marsh-mallows; if they be found dry on the third day, she’ll not conceive.” “Si explorare volueris, utrum mulier ad concipiendam sit idonea, tunc super malvam sylvestram urinam ejus funde; si ille tertio die arida fuerit, omnino minus idoneam illam habeto.”—(Idem, p. 61.)
Paullini urges that the excrements of goats, hawks, horses, geese, and the urine of camels be taken to remedy sterility (p. 161).
And the very same remedies are given by Beckherius and still older writers.
English women, in some localities, drank the urine of their husbands to assist them in the hour of labor.
“In the collection entitled ‘Sylon, or the Wood’ (p. 130) we read that ‘a few years ago, in this same village, the women in labor used to drinke the urine of their husbands, who were all the while stationed, as I have seen the cows in St. James’s Park, straining themselves to give as much as they can.’”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. iii. article, “Lady in the Straw.”)
“Mariti urina hausta partum difficilem facilitare dicitur.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 265, Schroderi, “Dilucidati Zoölogia.”)
An instance of the drinking of her own urine by a pregnant woman is to be read in Schurig (p. 45), art. “De Pica.”