The power of AI.
Long story short, AI initially pushed back on the ridiculous idea that drinking your own piss was a cure all, then these users figured out that adding words like ‘esoteric’ to their prompts let them direct AI to tell them what they wanted to hear.
Tbh article was too gross for me to finish. That’s all you get from me for a summary.
Appears to be a common myth. They apparently did however collect it for ammonia and phosphorus extraction and for use in cleaning agents. There’s a couple articles on dispelling the myth, but this one looked like a good read. (Unfortunate domain name with the topic at hand, however)
https://www.tastesofhistory.co.uk/post/dispelling-some-myths-romans-cleaned-their-teeth-with-urine