Urine therapy

In alternative medicine, the term urine therapy or urotherapy, (also urinotherapy or uropathy or auto-urine therapy) refers to various applications of human urine for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, including drinking of one's own urine and massaging one's skin, or gums, with one's own urine.

History

Though urine has been used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in several traditional systems, and mentioned in some medical texts, auto-urine therapy as a system of alternative medicine was invented and popularized by British naturopath John W. Armstrong in early 20th century. Armstrong was inspired by his family's practice of using urine to treat minor stings and toothaches, by a metaphorical reading of the Biblical Proverb "drink water from your own cistern...", and his own experience with ill-health that he treated with a 45-day fast "on nothing but urine and tap water". Starting in 1918, Armstrong prescribed urine-therapy regimens that he devised to many thousands of patients, and in 1944 he published The Water of Life: A treatise on urine therapy, which became a founding document of the field.