From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Fully filled or partially filled?
Date: 11 Sep 1999 22:20:29 GMT

In <19990911095959.07530.00006784@ng-cj1.aol.com> dgoncz@aol.com ( Doug
Goncz ) writes:

>I have been told that urine is sterile. I haven't made up my mind on
>that.

   Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.  It has the best chance of
being sterile (very nearly 100%) when coming from a male near the age
of puberty.  The farther from that you go in age, toward infancy or
geriatrics, the more chance you have of asymptomatic bactiuria, which
is a more or less continuous infection of the bladder.

   For women, it's the same general distribution, but take those odds
and multiply by some number >1, since women have a short urethra, and
it's easier for bugs to get into the bladder in girls and women.  Long
urethras are a protection from bladder infections.  Michael Jordan, for
example, has never had a bladder infection.  I myself never get
them....

   For women, there are also other blips caused by a vagaries of being
that gender.  Incidence of infection and bacteuria goes way up when
sexual activity begins, due to simple mechanical effects unsuitable for
exposition in family forums (the system does get used to this, to some
degree, in most women).  Childbirth also causes changes in bladder
suspension which cause losses of efficiency in maintaining urine
sterility.  And finally, at menopause, loss of hormones (if not
replaced) which are not replaced cause friabiliy of tissues which also
messes the general system of protection up, in women.

   So, it's a complicated thing.  Soldiers in the field in desert
conditions have been able to use urine for wound cleaning with
reasonable results.  If you are in a battle for a city, and have access
only to urine from 80 year old female nursing home residents, however,
I would recommend you not use that source.  The pure light of wisdom
speaks here, so listen up.

                                        Steve Harris