Hoggburn Pregnancy Test.
Contemporary people want to know whether they like to be a parent, take out the pregnancy test stick to test it. If it's two bars, congratulations, get ready for a new life.
The principle of the pregnancy test stick is not complicated to say. The fertilized egg moves to implant in the woman's uterus, forming an embryo. In the process of its gradual development into a fetus, the trophoblast cells of the placenta secrete a substance called "human chorionic gonadotropin", or hcg for short.
This substance, with a large range of activities, can enter the urine of pregnant women through blood circulation and react with the substance in the pregnancy test stick, showing a "congratulations, you have won the lottery" change.
Once upon a time, human beings had a strange method of pregnancy testing
Succession, the great desire of man. Pregnancy testing is an innate human need. Unfortunately, in the ancient times when science and technology were two eyes and one black, it was purely resigned to fate to test whether you had a baby.
China's ancestors mainly relied on the pulse. The old Chinese medicine doctor of the Xianfeng Dao Bone put his finger together, frowned and thought, and then smiled happily, accompanied by the word "youxi", announcing that your race continued the small goal, even if it was half completed. In this regard, Li Shizhen, a big v of the Ming Dynasty medical community, also described the feeling of touching the happy pulse - like a small iron bead rolling over the fingers in turn.
The ancient Egyptians invented the "pregnant women's urine and crops" pregnancy test. They sprinkled the urine of the women on behalf of the test on the wheat, vowing that as long as the wheat sprouted, it would represent pregnancy.
It may seem nonsensical, but in 1963, scientists experimented with this method and found that the accuracy rate was as high as 70%. The reason for this is that the estrogen in the urine of pregnant women can promote the germination of seeds. As for whether it is a man or a woman, it is better to guess for yourself.
In any case, the Egyptians also created a botanical-based pregnancy test in the wrong way. In contrast, European pregnancy tests are much more metaphysical.
At that time, the European physician in charge of pregnancy testing, called the "Pee Prophet", was essentially a master of flickering. If you feel like you have, pee a glass of urine first. They made up this cup of excrement. The color of the urine is off-white, clear, lemon-colored, and there are flocculents to indicate pregnancy. It sounds like looking at antiques.
I really can't see that some dedicated doctors will taste it for themselves. Even if you can't find out if you're pregnant, you can at least find out if you're on fire or have diabetes.
For the sake of rice bowl, they also fought.
Although the above methods belong to the "Schrödinger pregnancy test", you never know if you are pregnant until your belly is large. But some pregnancy tests have done one thing right, that is, they are using urine to make a fuss, but they have not found the secret hidden in the urine.
Rats, rabbits, take turns
Until the Enlightenment, science defeated theology, rigorous and accurate analysis and calculation, replaced the occult sorcery to see the sky to eat. The matter of pregnancy testing can really be regarded as the development of medical technology, and the feudal superstitions of the past have all been overthrown.
At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists understood that the regulation of various functions of the human body depends on a chemical substance, hormones. In 1920, humans discovered a hormone hidden in a high concentration in pregnant women, that is, hCG we mentioned earlier.
But with this, reliable, fast and accurate pregnancy tests are still a fantasy. Because humans still lack effective detection methods.
In the 1920s, two German physicians, Sandek and Ashheim, found through research that injecting pregnant women's urine into female mice that were not yet sexually mature could cause their ovaries to precociously mature and become hyperemic. In other words, the "universal tool man" guinea pig can also be used for pregnancy testing.
There's nothing wrong with this method, it's... A bit of a fee-and-mouse.
Because if you want to observe the ovaries of mice, you have to dissect them. Every pregnancy test, five mice are dissected, and it is inexplicably painful.
Later, some researchers improved the experiment and used cute rabbits to test pregnancy. Every time you test, a rabbit dies. It is said that at that time, a normal clinic killed 6,000 rabbits a year. If a pregnant woman wants to euphemistically express that she is pregnant, she will say "the rabbit is dead".
It's really "no pregnancy, no killing".
Later, it was finally the turn of the "frog"
In the 1930s, there was finally a legend who saved mice and cute rabbits, and he was hoggburn, a British biologist.
In 1927, Hogg had gone to South Africa to do a big job and experiment with his favorite frog hormones. He quickly took aim at the large and very well-caught African clawed frog.
In 1930, Hoggburn accidentally discovered that injecting African claw frogs with hormones could make them lay eggs.
This is a business opportunity. It should be known that the urine of pregnant women also contains hormones. If these hormones can also stimulate the laying of eggs in clawed frogs, it will undoubtedly invent a kind of living experience of pregnancy sticks.
Hoggburn returned to England non-stop, conducted repeated experiments, and finally determined that this method was effective.
Thus, the seemingly non-toxic and harmless "Hoggburn Pregnancy Test" was born. The operation is simple, just give the female African clawed frog, inject the female fresh urine, and observe it. If, after 5-12 hours, the clawed frog lays a string of black and white eggs, it is certain that the woman is pregnant.
This method is low cost and does not kill, and clawed frogs can be used repeatedly. In the minds of people at that time, it belonged to the method of "benefiting without harm".
So, between the 1940s and the 1960s, thousands of clawed frogs were injected with human urine.
In the 1970s, human technology ushered in another advance. Home pregnancy kits containing test tubes, droppers, dried sheep blood cell capsules, and antibody serum were launched on the market.
Although the operation is complicated, women can test themselves whether they are pregnant without relying on a doctor, which is somewhat convenient. Moreover, if used correctly, the kit achieves an accuracy rate of 97%.
In this way, the African clawed frog unit responsible for pregnancy testing can retire honorably, enter history, and disband in situ.
Here comes the nightmare of amphibians worldwide
Looks beautiful, right?
But here the plot takes a sharp turn, and the nightmare of amphibians comes.
Since 1993, there has been an incalculable global mass extinction of frogs. Especially in Australia and the Caribbean region of Central America, the extinction situation is the most severe, like Thanos in the frogs, with a snap of the fingers.
Strangely, the extinction of these animals all occurred in the wilderness mountains far away from humans.
Wait, isn't it true that humans don't have pots?
Not really. In 2004, researchers at the University of South Africa analyzed hundreds of biological samples of African clawed frogs and finally found that the "patient zero" that ravaged the frog world on six continents was likely to be the African claw frog that was released that year.
You know, in order to test pregnancy, the African clawed frogs that have spread all over the world will not be transported back to their hometown in South Africa. Most of them were deported in situ, resulting in unimaginable biological invasions on the ground.
What's even more terrifying is that these frogs also carry a killer called "frog chytrid fungus" in their bodies. After a long evolution, the frog pot fungus and the African claw frog have long formed a symbiotic relationship, and no one can take anyone. But let it meet other frogs and amphibians, that is pure dimensionality reduction blow, indiscriminate killing, see one extinguished one.
Because of this, spotted toads like those living in British Columbia, Canada, have been beaten by frogs and become endangered species.
According to a team of surveys from the Australian National University, there are actually 501 species of amphibians whose populations have declined due to Chytrid frog infection – about 6.5% of the total, of which 90 species have been completely extinct and another 124 species have decreased by more than 90%.
It seems that we humans should be cautious when applying any technology that is convenient to us.
You really can't imagine that you may have unknowingly opened a Pandora's black box that is enough to destroy nature.
Today, 11 U.S. states prohibit the raising, transportation, and sale of these frogs without permission.
On August 29, 2012, anthropologist and artist Eben Kirksey performed a retro show in New York to try to recreate the once-popular Hogburn frog pregnancy test. Kirksey bought a frog from a company that supplied experimental animals and named it "Lauretta". A woman at the scene had just undergone IVF and was curious to know if the fertilized egg had successfully implanted.
Kirksey injected Laurieta with urine, and after waiting for a while nothing happened. The 130 spectators who broadcast live and webcasts were greatly disappointed. Later, the woman who provided the urine sample tested with modern pregnancy tests and the result was negative (not pregnant).
"We have to admit that Lauretta has always been right." Kirksey wrote afterwards.
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Source: Wuhan Evening News