Aqua omnium florum

Aqua omnium florum or all-flower water was water distilled from cow-dung in May, when the cows ate fresh grass with meadow flowers. It was also known less euphemistically as aqua stercoris vaccini stillatitia (distilled water of cow dung).^[1] This was used as a medicine to treat a variety of ailments including gout, rheumatism and tuberculosis.^[2][3]

A cow pat.

The 17th century court physician George Bate favoured it and it appeared in the Pharmacopœia Bateana — Bate's Dispensatory.^[4] Recipes included:^[2]

cow dung, gathered in May, adding to it a third of white wine and then distilled

fresh cow-dung and snails with their shells bruised equal parts, mix and distill in a common still

Rx Fresh cow dung gathered in the morning; spring or rain water; mix and digest twenty-four hours, let it settle, and then decant the clear brown tincture.

The latter prescription was used as a panacea by a female doctor in Bate's time. Many incurable cases were brought to her which she treated in this way and she made a great fortune of £20,000 from this practice.^[2]

Urina vaccina

Cow tea or urina vaccina (cow's urine) was sometimes called aqua omnium florum too.^[1] This was used as a purgative for which the dosage would be "half a pint drank warm from the cow".^[5] It was drunk by women in May to clear their complexion.^[1]

Indian traditional medicine

Main articles: Gomutra and Cowpathy

Cow dung, urine and other bovine products are still used extensively in the traditional Hindu medicine, Ayurveda.^[6]

Cattle urine drinking in Islam

Similarly, in Islam the drinking of camel urine as the Islamic Prophetic medicine by Muhammad,^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} has no medicinal scientific evidence according to the World Health Organization.^[7]

See also

• Compost tea
• Beef tea
• Mycobacterium vaccae
• Stool transplant