Narco Non Victims

History of Urine Drug Testing

Theorized roughly two centuries ago by a man known as Carl Friedrich Gartner in the early 1800′s,  his desire was openly made for an easy way of testing urine for disease at a patient’s bedside. Through many different cultures urine was once regarded as a mystical fluid, and in some cases it is still regarded as such to this day; one such example being how people from India cover the urine of a cow. Uses vary and have included wound healing, stimulation of the body’s defenses, and examinations for diagnosing the presence of diseases. Naturally evolving at a steady progression over the countless centuries since it was introduced as an idea, many of the earliest methods of detecting disease would be brought forward through analysis of a subjects urine.

While extremely crude in the earlier models, in 1950, a Parisian chemist known as Jules Maumene would be the first to invent an actual urine test strip; he did this by impregnating a strip of merino wool with a chemical known as ‘tin protochloride.’ Upon application of a drop of urine and heating it over a candle, the strip would instantly turn black if the urine contained sugar. Nearly forty years later, in 1883 an english physiologist known as George Oliver actually markets the first “Urinary Test Papers”. These would become open for commercial purchase nearly ten years later as they would be called Reagent papers and would be distributed by a company known as “Helfenberg AG.”

Progressively improving itself until actually becoming a reliable method of testing in the early 1920′s by today’s standards, with a approval rate of roughly 90%, it wouldn’t be until the 1950′s that the modern method of testing would be theorized and introduced to the public. Working on the basis of chemical reactions to force a change that will become readable on a test strip, the exact chemical being used to determine a positive or negative reaction is directly dependent on the chemical that is trying to be detected. Only when the proper chemical is introduced to the drug test will it trigger a proper result, an important fact to remember as a urine test linked directly to the detection of marijuana will not detect something like alcohol.  Roughly fifteen years would pass from this breakthrough in urine testing before the company, Boehringer, known in the world market under the name of Roche, launched its first com-bur test-strips. Despite the drug test strips having changed their external appearance minimally since 1960, they now contain a number of revolutionary innovations.    Impregnation techniques, added stable color indicators, and the steady improvement in color gradation have all contributed to the fact that the use of urine test-strips has now become established in clinical and private practice as a reliable medical instrument.

From the very first realization of a reaction capable of being reached through urine testing by searching out a pollutant or chemical inside, the state of urine-testing has absolutely exploded in what it can do and test for in the last three decades. Where once it was extremely limited in what it could possibly detect, with only very limited uses and applications, now it is possible to test anything from narcotics, to disease, to even excretions which may be filtered through the urine in certain foods, drinks and handled objects. One thing to keep in mind is that despite so much evolution in what the test can detect for, an inherent flaw will always exist in counter-reactions which can be introduced by foreign substances being purposely added to the urine content.

One such common example is the early understanding that vitamin b12 otherwise known as ‘Niacin’ was capable of neutralizing test results by directly and adversely reacting with the chemicals inside the test being used to detect narcotics. While this specific flaw has been more or less hammered out by the introduction of a test to see increased levels of vitamin b12, it is an excellent example of how where one sought reaction can take place, another one altogether can happen if a foreign substance is introduced to the test. Another extremely troublesome chemical that can interfere with urine test-strips is ascorbic acid (vitamin C)  it directly affects the oxidation reaction of the blood and glucose pad on common urine test strips. More commonly now, primarily in urine test strips that are more expensive, an agent has been introduced to limit interference, known as iodate, it eliminates ascorbic acid by oxidation.