Two thousand years ago, the busiest shop in a Roman town was the fullonica, the laundry. Its secret ingredient was human urine, collected from clay pots on street corners.
It worked. Urine breaks down into ammonia, the same chemistry found in modern cleaners.
Urine was so valuable that emperors taxed it. When his son complained, Vespasian held up a coin: Pecunia non olet. Money doesn't stink.
Watch the short: https://youtu.be/mxhGGURcHvA
New stories every week on Aha Lantern on YouTube. Animated with AI-generated illustrations and a synthetic narrator voice.
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