Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
2.2 Uroscopy becomes a symbol of quackery and fraud
Medicine has never been without its critics. A widespread early Christian
critique involved an argument based on how useless and powerless medi-
cine was compared to the Almighty. In late medieval caricatures, which
widely used animals to mock their subjects, the 'physician as ape' or the
'ape as physician' became a popular motif (Janson 1952) (Figure 4a). In
the late fifteenth
century, along with the devastating pests in Europe, the
skeleton (a symbol of death) began to replace the ape in popularity,
resulting in images that portrayed powerless urine inspecting doctors
confronted with naked death. A typical example is Holbein's
Dance of
the Death
(Figure 4b).
7
Apart from the religious criticisms of medicine, more specific cri-
tiques of medical practice with a particular focus on uroscopy grew dur-
ing the sixteenth century. People began to mock the increasingly fantas-
tic claims about the diagnostic potential of uroscopy, which by this time
had expanded to include Paracelsian methods of urine distillation and
quasi-chemical tests. In particular, the notion that the urine-filled matula
would somehow map the body of the patient and thus allow localizing
diseases, which culminated in Leonhardt Thurneisser's urine distillation
apparatus in the shape of a man (Figure 4c), became subject to satire. For
instance, Pieter Brueghel the Elder produced a satirical drawing of a doc-
tor and his dog discovering a fanciful humunculus in a matula (Figure
4d). Despite these criticisms the business of uroscopy flourished during
this time period and its practitioners were quite well-paid, which further
encouraged satirists like Thomas Murner to attack both physicians for
their greed and uselessness and uroscopy patients for their foolishness
(Figure 4e).
Because vernacular textbooks on uroscopy began to be printed in
large numbers in the sixteenth century, the art of urine inspection and
'pisse prophecy' (uromancy) became extremely popular among patients,
inducing a rapid growth of self-educated uroscopists. As a result the
medical establishment was challenged to defend their academic prestige
by clearly distinguishing themselves from these practitioners. By 1601
7
On uroscopy in the Dance-of-the-Death tradition, see Zglinicki 1982, pp. 77-96.
