Article ID: CBB000772993

The Decline of Uroscopy in Early Modern Learned Medicine (1500--1650) (2007)

unapi

Stolberg, Michael (Author)


Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 12
Pages: 313--336


Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: Part of a special section: “Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, Alchemy and Magic (Part I)”
Language: English

From the early sixteenth century, uroscopy lost much of the great appeal it had possessed among medieval physicians. Once valued as an outstanding diagnostic tool which ensured authority and fame, it became an object of massive criticism if not derision. As this paper shows, growing awareness of theoretical inconsistencies, the new medical empiricism and humanistic opposition against Arabic and medieval predecessors can explain this drastic revaluation only in part. Uroscopy, it is argued here, came to be perceived above all as a threat to the physicians' professional authority. Faced with persistent demands that they diagnose diseases primarily if not exclusively from urine, they were left with an awkward choice. They risked making fools of themselves by blatant misdiagnosis, but if they rejected the patients' demands people would deem them incapable of a task which many of their less educated competitors were perfectly happy to perform. In the end, in spite of the physicians' massive campaign against it, uroscopy remained very much alive. On the highly competitive early modern medical market patient power had once more prevailed.

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Article Kusukawa, Sachiko (2007) Introductory Note. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period. unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000772993/

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Authors & Contributors
Bigotti, Fabrizio
Ross, Emily
Ferdinando, Epifanio
Portulano, Maria Luisa
Distante, Amedeo Elio
Baldanzi, Francesco
Concepts
Medicine
Physicians; doctors
Diagnosis
Disease and diseases
Apothecaries
Medicine and politics
Time Periods
17th century
16th century
18th century
Early modern
Renaissance
Medieval
Places
Italy
Middle and Near East
England
Peru
Florence (Italy)
Spain
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