Medieval uroscopy and its representation on misericords - Part 1: Uroscopy

Clinical Medicine

Volumn 1, Issue 6, 2001, Pages 507-509

  Connor, Henry ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; MEDICAL ETHICS; URINALYSIS;

ETHICS, MEDICAL; HISTORY, 16TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 18TH CENTURY; HISTORY, MEDIEVAL; URINALYSIS;

EID: 0035523799     PISSN: 14702118     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.7861/clinmedicine.1-6-507     Document Type: Review

References (36)

1. Anonymous. The evolution of urine analysis, an historical sketch of the clinical examination of urine. London: Burroughs Wellcome, 1911.
2. Hoeniger FD. Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992:230-3.
3. Canton AD, Castellano M. Theory of urine formation and uroscopic diagnosis in the Medical School of Salerno. Kidney International 1988;34:273-7.
4. Haber MH. Pisse Prophecy: A brief history of urinalysis. Clin Lab Med 1988:8:415-30.
5. Garrison FH. An introduction to the history of medicine. Philadelphia and London: WB Saunders, second edition, 1917:134.
6. Fine LG. Circle of urine glasses: art of uroscopy. Am J Nephrol 1986; 6:307-11.
7. Rawcliffe C. Medicine and society in later medieval England. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1997:46-52.
8. Getz FM. Charity, translation and the language of medical learning in medieval England. Bull Hist Med 1990;64:1-17.
9. Moorat SJ (ed.). Catalogue of Western manuscripts on medicine and science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library. Vol 1: MSS written before 1650 AD. London, 1962:578-9.
10. Orme M. The medieval schools of Herefordshire. Nottingham Medieval Studies 1966;40:47-62.
11. Harvey JH. The first English garden book. Garden History 1985;13: 83-101.
12. Garrison FH. An introduction to the history of medicine. Philadelphia and London: WB Saunders, second edition, 1917:165-6.
13. Jarcho S. Guide for physicians (Muscar Harofim) by Isaac Judaeus -translated from the Hebrew. Bull Hist Med 1944;15:180-8.
14. Wright T (editor and translator). The political songs of England from the reign of John to that of Edward II. London: Camden Society, 1834:333.
15. Harris W. Pharmacologica anti-empirica. London: Richard Chiswell 1683:325-9. Walter Harris (1647-1732) converted from Protestant to Roman Catholic and back again, and was able to serve as physician to both Charles II and William III. In the College of Physicians he was, at various times, Censor, Treasurer, Consilarius, Harveian Orator and Lumleian Lecturer (Munk W. The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, second edition, London, 1878, vol 1:423-4).
16. Harris W. Pharmacologica anti-empirica. London: Richard Chiswell 1683:325-9. Walter Harris (1647-1732) converted from Protestant to Roman Catholic and back again, and was able to serve as physician to both Charles II and William III. In the College of Physicians he was, at various times, Censor, Treasurer, Consilarius, Harveian Orator and Lumleian Lecturer (Munk W. The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, second edition, London, 1878, vol 1:423-4).
17. Silvette H. The urine tells all. In: Butler F (ed.), The doctor on the stage: medicine and medical men in seventeenth century England. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967:7-35.
18. Statuta Collegii Medicorum Londii 1555. The relevant passage is quoted in Sir George Clark's A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964: Vol 1, Appendix 1, p384, where he gives the original reference as Bodleian MS. Ashmole 1826.
19. Statuta Collegii Medicorum Londii 1555. The relevant passage is quoted in Sir George Clark's A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964: Vol 1, Appendix 1, p384, where he gives the original reference as Bodleian MS. Ashmole 1826.
20. The original Statuta Vetera did not survive the fire of London in 1666, but copies survive in the manuscripts of Charles Goodall (RCP MS. 2272/236) and, with minor differences, of William Munk (RCP MS. 2012/78). The relevant passage in the 1647 Statutes, which did survive the fire, is given in Clark (op cit) p416.
21. The original Statuta Vetera did not survive the fire of London in 1666, but copies survive in the manuscripts of Charles Goodall (RCP MS. 2272/236) and, with minor differences, of William Munk (RCP MS. 2012/78). The relevant passage in the 1647 Statutes, which did survive the fire, is given in Clark (op cit) p416.
22. The original Statuta Vetera did not survive the fire of London in 1666, but copies survive in the manuscripts of Charles Goodall (RCP MS. 2272/236) and, with minor differences, of William Munk (RCP MS. 2012/78). The relevant passage in the 1647 Statutes, which did survive the fire, is given in Clark (op cit) p416.
23. Bodleian Library MS. Rawlinson Statutes 6, 15863/64.
24. Bodleian Library MS. 18037 fol 33v.
25. Thomas St C. Shakespeare and medicine. Trans Med Soc Lond 1916;34:257-325, especially 279-280.
26. Simpson RR. Shakespeare and medicine. Edinburgh and London: E and S Livingstone, 1959:21-24, 45-46.
27. Brian T. Pisse-prophet or certaine pisse-pot lectures. London: R Thrale, 1637. Thomas Brian graduated from Cambridge, BA 1624-5, MA 1629 in which year he also obtained his licence from the College of Physicians, practising first in London and then in Colchester where he became a Member of Parliament.
28. Primrose J. Popular Errours or The Errours of the people in matter of Physick. English translation by Robert Wittie, London: Nicholas Bourne, 1651:64, 91-2.
29. Primrose's original work was published in Latin in 1637 (H Robinson, St Paul's Churchyard, London). He quotes the College's prohibition on associating with uroscopists from the Statuta Vetera in almost identical form to that given in references 18 and 19 but with minor differences which may be stylistic or due to transcription errors or possibly because, as Clark has shown (op cit pp172-81), the Statutes were revised on a number of occasions. Copies of Primrose's original work, of two Dutch reprints and of Wittie's translation are in the library of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Although Wittie's translation was not published until 1651, he says in his introduction that the work had been completed and with the printer more than eleven years earlier, but that printing had been hindered by 'the Distractions of the times', presumably a reference to the turmoil of the English Civil War. James Prim(e)rose (LRCP 1629, d 1659) was born and studied in France before practising in Hull. Munk's Roll lists thirteen of his publications, one of which was an attack on Harvey's description of the circulation, which was published the year after Harvey completed his final terms of office as Censor and Treasurer of the College. Munk quotes from the Life of Harvey
30. by Willis who wrote that Primrose's essay 'abounds ... in what may be termed dishonest perversions of simple matters of fact, and in its whole course appeals not once to experimentation as a means of investigation' (Munk's Roll, op cit in ref 15, pp 197-8).
31. Primrose's attack on uroscopy may therefore have been motivated not simply by a dislike of empiricism and quacks but also by a desire to rehabilitate himself within the College; if so, he appears to have succeeded because the reverse of the title page of De Vulgi in Medicina Erroribus gives an endorsement of the work by Simeon Fox, who was President of the College (1634-40) and who describes it as 'wise and worthy'. Robert Wittie, who translated this work by Primrose, also practised in Hull, having been born in Beverley where he was baptised in St Mary's, one of the churches described later as featuring an ape uroscopist on one of its misericords. He was an ardent advocate of the spa waters at Scarborough (Munk's Roll, op cit in ref 15, pp 413-5).
32. Dewhurst K. Willi's Oxford lectures. Oxford: Sandford Publications, 1980:9-10.
33. Lane J. The Making of the English patient. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000:28.
34. Lettsom JC. History of the origin of medicine. London: E and C Dilly, 1778:153, note (a).
35. Abraham JJ. Lettsom: his life, times, friends and descendants. London: William Heineman Medical Books, 1933:169-75. Abraham suggests that Lettsom was critical of the College of Physicians which could have suppressed Myersbach's activities, but did not do so because it feared allegations of self-interest and malevolence.
36. Hogarth's engraving is also an early example of the use of the gold-headed cane as a symbol of the physician.