[HN Gopher] Ancient Egyptian pregnancy test survived millenia be...
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Ancient Egyptian pregnancy test survived millenia because it worked
(2018)
Author : vezycash
Score : 95 points
Date : 2020-04-23 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (science.howstuffworks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (science.howstuffworks.com)
| teilo wrote:
| > Researchers currently poring over the papyri in the Carlsberg
| Collection are finding that medical information discovered in
| ancient Egypt didn't disappear when the Library of Alexandria
| burned
|
| That's because almost nothing was lost when the library at
| Alexandria burned. Because there was almost nothing there to burn
| at the time. The library had long been in decline by this time
| period, and there were many other great centers of learning in
| the world which had extensive libraries. Why does this myth still
| persist?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Can anyone verify or contradict this, with reliable sources?
|
| I've spent my whole life believing that it was a disaster when
| the library at Alexandria burned. Is it possible it wasn't a
| big deal? How do we know?
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| Probably because I've never heard anyone contradict it until
| just now. If you have some reliable references, I'd be happy to
| learn from them!
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Alexandria also mostly had copies, they were famous for
| stealing books from arriving ships in order to make copies
| for a while there.
| CyreneOfCyrene wrote:
| Incoming ships got searched for books because there was a
| law in place made by one of the Ptolemies that any ships
| coming in would be required by law to lend any books on
| board to the library to make copies. Sometimes, the scribes
| would keep the original and give the copy back because they
| would be hard to distinguish.
| wl wrote:
| https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/pluginfile.php/437863/mod.
| ..
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| That's not great. A quick skim says that the number of
| books were probably (edit typo: overestimated) by a fair
| bit:
|
| "The actual numbers were probably lower, perhaps by as much
| as one order of magnitude"
|
| Reference to this says "a library that was a tenth of this
| size [sc. the 500,000 in Ps.-Aristeas] would still have
| been very large in antiquity") so it was a large library. I
| have to say, claims of hundreds of thousand weren't really
| plausible anyway.
|
| Second it doesn't say it was dwarfed elsewhere at the time.
| It does say "The Library of Alexandria, however
| comprehensive for its time, was not on a scale comparable
| with the great research libraries of the twentieth
| century[0]". Which is fair, but doesn't support what you
| say.
|
| finally it doesn't say (that I can see) that it was empty
| when destroyed. The guy does say there's now way it would
| have survived a long time due to the humidity and climate
| it was in, but doesn't suggest (AFAIKS) that it was nearly
| empty when it was destroyed.
|
| [0] well duh
|
| So I'm going to go with the more common view for now.
| Thanks anyway.
| ardy42 wrote:
| >> Researchers currently poring over the papyri in the
| Carlsberg Collection are finding that medical information
| discovered in ancient Egypt didn't disappear when the Library
| of Alexandria burned
|
| > That's because almost nothing was lost when the library at
| Alexandria burned. Because there was almost nothing there to
| burn at the time. The library had long been in decline by this
| time period, and there were many other great centers of
| learning in the world which had extensive libraries. Why does
| this myth still persist?
|
| Because it's a rather romantic myth, and it's repeated by
| influential people in still-prominent works (e.g. https://old.r
| eddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1nqrl0/carl_sag...).
|
| The actual source howstuffworks.com cites for that section
| doesn't mention the myth (https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-
| videnskabdk/unpublished-eg...). My guess is the "freelance
| science writer" who wrote this piece interpolated it for color
| from a memory of a pop-science source like the one in the
| critique above.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I also learned it in school on history class, as probably
| most other people. (And I believe they still teach it). Good
| to get an update.
| aazaa wrote:
| There's more about this in an Atlantic article:
|
| > One of the oldest descriptions of a pregnancy test comes from
| ancient Egypt, where women who suspected they were pregnant would
| urinate on wheat and barley seeds: If the wheat grew, they
| believed, it meant the woman was having a girl; the barley, a
| boy; if neither plant sprouted, she wasn't pregnant at all.
| Avicenna, a 10th-century Persian philosopher, would pour sulfur
| over women's urine, believing that the telltale sign was worms
| springing from the resulting mixture. In 16th-century Europe,
| specialists known as "piss prophets" would read urine like tea
| leaves, claiming to know by its appearance alone whether the
| woman who supplied it was pregnant.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/history-h...
| Herodotus38 wrote:
| A similar method, that is detecting hCG in urine, was used in the
| early 20th century by injecting into xenopus frog.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2211252/pdf/brm...
|
| Another recent article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-
| news/doctors-used-to-us...
| gus_massa wrote:
| Is there a link to the study where they got the 70%? If they used
| a group with a 50% of pregnant women then 70% is not too much.
| Also it would be nice to know the number of women to estimate the
| error in the 70%. *If they had 10 women in total and they get the
| right result in 7, it is not impressive at all.)
|
| Also, the weeks of pregnancy are important. This test is useful
| proably in before the week 6, but I think the homones level
| change with time.
| credit_guy wrote:
| I'm trying to picture a bunch of archaeologists deciphering
| some Egyptian papyri, and then going to some hospital (or maybe
| university) to enlist women who would be willing to pee in some
| bags with wheat and barley. In order to assess the accuracy of
| an ancient wives' tale.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I always like to think about the first person who thought of
| this. "Hmm let's pee on some wheat and barley, I wonder if this
| will prove if the woman is pregnant".
| watwut wrote:
| Some woman peed on wheat/barley while working outside, it
| sprouted. She noticed and later found out she is pregnant.
| Theory formed, gossip did rest to let others know too.
| emmelaich wrote:
| There's also the strong link between fertility and spring.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| It was a different time, with magic thinking.
|
| Urine was (and is) considered to be strong magically tied to
| the person, so it was on focus for shamans and priests since
| ages. And used in combination with many other materials, to
| heal, to foresee, to curse ..
|
| And given, that urine does contain many personal informations,
| there is truth to it ..
| RandallBrown wrote:
| It's probably something more like the wheat and barley was
| waste and they peed in the same area they dumped their waste.
|
| One family noticed their barley was sprouting, while another's
| didn't. Shortly after, the family with the sprouts had a baby.
| It could have taken generations for this to be actually used as
| a pregnancy test.
| ardy42 wrote:
| It's also possible that there was some theory behind it that
| was wrong but happened to lead to an accurate technique.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I was going to suggest this. The Romans for example took a
| lot of medical interest in urine.
| TheCondor wrote:
| It's still a remarkable observation. Presumably urination was
| a private thing then as it is now. It seems like a coin toss
| between some 'shaman' suggesting it and it turned out to be
| true vs the many observations that had to happen.
|
| Women generally have a good idea, perhaps some women started
| to observe it as they maybe didn't want more children and
| didn't want men to know about it and we worried about each
| and every possible indication that could reveal it.
| roel_v wrote:
| Urination isn't really private in most of the world outside
| the West.
| lurquer wrote:
| Ambient temperature is important. Seeds are more likely to sprout
| at certain temps, and women are more likely to conceive in
| certain seasons (spring, for instance... not due to biology, but
| rather due to cultural/farming/religious cycles.)
| gwern wrote:
| The paper in question: "ON AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN METHOD OF
| DIAGNOSING PREGNANCY AND DETERMINING FOETAL SEX", Ghalioungui et
| al 1963 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1034829/
|
| I'm mostly surprised that they cite two previous experiments by
| Manger (1933, "Untersuchungen zum Problem der Geschlects diagnose
| aus Schwangerenhamn"
| https://www.gwern.net/docs/biology/1933-manger.pdf ) and Hoffmann
| (1934, "Versuche zur Schwangerschaftsdiagnose aus dem Harn"
| https://www.gwern.net/docs/biology/1934-hoffmann.pdf ). Who knew?
| Truly an example of Cowen's second law.
| jdtang13 wrote:
| Not a fan of the patronizing tone the author uses to describe
| ancient Egypt. Reeks of chronological snobbery.
| carapace wrote:
| Kind of a tangent (but potentially useful and little known) is
| the "baker's method" of male contraception.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marthe_Voegeli
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-based_contraception
|
| > It has long been observed that men who work in professions that
| expose them to heat in the nether regions: bakers, cooks,
| steamworkers; have had a hard time fathering children.
| Interestingly, men in these professions were observed to start
| having children after retiring or finding a new job. Based on
| these observations, Dr. Martha Vogeli [ _sic_ , her name ends
| with 'e': Marthe] ran a long set of experiments starting in the
| 1940's in India. After trying all possible combinations, Dr.
| Vogeli found a consistent method for inducing temporary
| infertility in men by a series of hot baths. In short, men who
| sat in hot water for 45 minutes a day for 3 weeks were protected
| for at least 6 months.
|
| ~ https://www.dontcookyourballs.com/heat-based-contraception-n...
| cafard wrote:
| a. Forty-five minutes is a long time to sit in a bath, and a
| long time to keep water hot.
|
| b. Long ago, I read that wearing jockey shorts rather than
| boxers put one at a slightly higher risk for testicular cancer,
| presumably because the jockeys keep the freight warmer. Now,
| the risk of testicular cancer is pretty slight to start with,
| but I whether the hot-bath method raises it.
| Elof wrote:
| It's not that long if you have a spa. I have a family friend
| who were having trouble getting pregnant with their second
| child. They tried everything and took over a year, but
| finally the dr suggested that the husband stoped using the
| spa... it worked
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| I am wondering if my MBP on my lap was the root cause of my
| fertility issues. I can't believe I didn't google this before.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Mate! This is well known! My mum told me this a decade ago ht
| tps://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=lapt...
|
| I'm mad it wasn't well known enough that everyone happens to
| know it.
|
| Also cycling.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Wasn't there a comic or meme or something about this exact
| premise?
| agumonkey wrote:
| Does it affects cultures with regular hot baths ? Japan people
| are said to enjoy that. Also .. saunas ?
| qppo wrote:
| that's one hell of a domain name
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Honestly this seems a damn sight safer than most forms of
| female birth control. Maybe I should register "cookyourballs".
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| A hour for 3 weeks, what the hell
| novok wrote:
| It's inconsistent, you would need easy & cheap at home sperm
| count testing to be reliable, like we have with pregnancy
| tests.
|
| With other forms you can see results via period activity
| reduction or increasing (in case of copper IUD) or physical
| breakage or feeling changes.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| I wonder if the jacuzzi people love or hate this.
| gboss wrote:
| I imagine love
| airstrike wrote:
| Make sure to recruit Olivia Wilde nee Cockburn for the
| advertising
| user982 wrote:
| I've wondered before if Japan's love for hot, daily baths has
| played some part in its low birthrate.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Maybe originally, but not anymore. Demographers regularly
| survey women in various countries about how many children
| they want to have, and in Japan women want to have on average
| 1 child, which means they're having that many children by
| choice and not accident.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Japanese women are _having_ on average one child. They want
| two.
|
| > Japan is one such country that discrepancy between
| intended and observed levels of fertility is relatively
| large. For example, calculated from a nationally
| representative survey in 2010 (IPSS 2011), the average
| number of intended children among women aged 40-44 is 1.84,
| while their observed cohort total fertility is estimated to
| be 1.48 . These discrepancies between intended and observed
| fertility suggest social constraints on meeting intentions.
|
| https://paa2014.princeton.edu/papers/141630
| zwieback wrote:
| 70% is 20% better than random, don't buy that crib yet.
| Drdrdrq wrote:
| So, 100% is 50% better than random? Weird math.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Might invest in a bushel basket.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Depends on the true distribution of the classes. Although the
| naive strategy gets even higher accuracy if the classes are
| unbalanced.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Would need to know how the sample was chosen for that test. If
| you sample women of reproductive age at random, there's
| decidedly _not_ a 50 /50 chance that she's actually pregnant:
| by rough estimation it should be about (1.75 [fertility rate] *
| 9 months [duration of pregnancy] / 30 years [reproductive
| lifespan] = 4-5%). If you give all of those woman a
| wheat/barley test and 70% of the positive tests were truly
| pregnant (implying about 6.25% test positives) that's actually
| pretty good, roughly 8x better than a coin flip. If you take a
| sample that's known to be half pregnant and half not pregnant
| and only 70% of the pregnant women are identified, it's
| decidedly less good.
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