From uroscopy to urinalysis.
Within several decades, 1830-1860, a theoretical system which had left its mark on the practice and rationale of medicine for more than 2000 years, the theory of the four humors, collapsed, taking with it uroscopy as the most important diagnostic tool of the physician's trade. What was the prior and subsequent nature of 'science'? At the transition from uroscopy to urinalysis, contemporary writings manifest a change of paradigm which is unparalleled in the history of medicine, exemplified by the black urine of melanoma. The upheaval changed the doctor-patient relationship ('from bedside medicine to laboratory medicine') and brought forth a 'new type of scientist'. After 160 years of further development, it is time to abandon the triumphant stance of scientific medicine over traditional uroscopy and to restore the role of the latter in terms of what it meant for many centuries in the paradigm of human action: an area of projection of sensory physical experience of the world as well as a platform of medical competence and therapeutic interaction, embedded in the awareness of the limits of human existence.
Voswinckel
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Institut für Medizin- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Medizinische Universität zu Lübeck, Königstrasse 42, D-23552, Lübeck, Germany. vos@imwg.mu-luebeck.de
D005060:Europe; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D016482:Urinalysis / Q000266:history* / Q000379:methods