Pregnancy Testing

A newly pregnant young woman is receiving the news. It’s a boy! But she hasn’t given birth yet. The preoccupation of the the last 3 days has been the task of urinating on wheat and barley seeds. And today there has been growth of the barley seeds. If it had been the wheat seeds beginning to grow, the news would be of a girl. But the young Egyptian woman is proud and blessed to be hearing of the news of a boy. His birthday will be on the summer harvest 1350BC. He will grow to be a strong man.

Sounds a little strange doesn’t it? How can a pregnant woman’s urine cause wheat and barley seeds to grow. It seemed that they were educated in a science that would not be perfected to modern day standards until thousands of years later. This ancient form of pregnancy testing is the first ever to be recorded. Ancient yes, but testing of this theory in 1963 proved that the Ancients testing method had a 70% success rate. Ancient but accurate. We would not have any other documentation of pregnancy testing of any kind for another 3000 years.

This takes us to Seventeenth Century Europe. The urine of pregnant woman would be analyzed by color to determine her condition. The 1552 “Piss Prophets”, would diagnosis a woman pregnant if the color of her urine would appear to be a “Clear Lemon, more Whitish in nature revealing a cloudy surface”. Any successful prophecies from the “Piss Prophets”, are unknown at this time. Since the color of urine is sensitive to diet, I must imagine these prophecies could not have yielded a highly consistent success rate.

When the Nineteenth Century came along it seems there was a return back to the basics. Close observation of the physical symptoms occurring in the patients, were the only form of positive diagnosis. Still the Scientific community was uneducated in the female changes that occur during pregnancy.

It was not until the 1890’s when Prenatal Care was encouraged, to promote a healthy mother along with a healthy child. During this time Ernest Starling was making Scientific advancements, with the founding and introduction of “Hormones”. Still little was known about the miracle of child birth.

The next major advancement did not occur until 1903. That was the year Ludwig Fraenkel identified progesterone to become isolated during gestation. Still the Scientific community was determined to figure out what occurs in women during pregnancy. So the testing resumed.