A brief review of Rhazes, Avicenna, and Jorjani's views on diagnosis of diseases through urine examination.

The present survey aims at studying the opinions of three famous medical scholars in history (Rhazes, Avicinna, and Jorjani) on the diagnosis of diseases via urine examination and their compatiblity with modern science. Refering to original authentic sources in traditional medicine, including Al-Hawi (The Virtuous Life), Zakhireh-i Kharazmshahi (Thesaurus of the Shah of Khwarazm), and Al-Canon fi al Tibb (The Canon on Medicine), we compared the ideas of the authors with modern medicine. In traditional medicine, physicians would pay attention to the methods of urine collection and urinary features such as color, consistency, volume, frequency, odor, and foam as the means of diagnosis, all of which still serve as the bases for today's diagnostic approach. Moreover, symptoms of the diagnosis of the disease through urine are consistent in tradition and modern medicine; some examples are blood in the urine (hematuria), decreased urine output (oliguria), change in urine color together with headache (Alport syndrome), diluted urine (tubular dysfunction in reabsorption of water or initial polydipsy), and urinary floor with tiny bubbles (one of the main symptoms of proteinuria).

Ibn-Sina's life and contributions to medicinal therapies of kidney calculi.

Ibn-Sina (commonly known as Avicenna) is one of the most famous and influential scientists in the history of medicine. The Canon of Medicine, which is his most celebrated book in medicine, presents a summary of all the medical knowledge of his time. Ibn-Sina wrote a complete section about kidney calculi in his book. Totally, 65 herbal, 8 animal, and 4 mineral medicines are mentioned in the Canon of Medicine as beneficial drugs for dissolving, expelling, and preventing kidney calculi. Ibn-Sina introduced very advanced drug designing based on drug delivery, targeting the organ, deposition in the site of action, pain control, wound healing, clearance after action, and supporting the organ. Using Ibn-Sina's ideas help scientists to choose better drugs with a historical background to reduce the cost of therapies and research projects.

Reception of uroscopy in Scandinavia.

The purpose of this article is to look for possible traces of uroscopy in Scandinavia. The manuscripts and early editions on this subject limit the period of uroscopy in Scandinavia to 1450-1600, perhaps even beginning as late as 1557. In the first hundred years of this period, the most important texts were bought by students in foreign countries and taken home to their libraries, but it is doubtful that they were used. This impression is reinforced when we look at the first print in Danish of a medical text. Book printing began in Denmark in 1482, and this text by Christiern Pedersen is from 1533. It deals with herbs and thus continues a rich tradition for herbal medicine in Denmark, but uroscopy is not mentioned. The next editor of medical texts published 7 books in Danish from 1536 to 1557. The last one (1557) is on uroscopy, and in the preface the author, a practising physician, recommends knowledge of uroscopy as useful for his fellow citizens. His source is Lorenz Fries who originally did not want his edition in German to get into the hands of lay people - only less-learned colleagues. The Danish translator gives the impression that uroscopy is something entirely new in Denmark. In 1596 another medical textbook including uroscopy appeared. This is a translation of Ortolff von Bayrlandt's Arzneibuch by a Danish surgeon. It was intended for surgeons and was only reprinted twice. The medical books from the 17th century do not include traditional uroscopy.

Urinalysis in Western culture: a brief history.

Today physicians use urine to diagnose selective conditions but from ancient times until the Victorian era, urine was used as the primary diagnostic tool. Laboratory medicine began with the analysis of human urine, which was called uroscopy and today is termed urinalysis. Uroscopy was the mirror of medicine for thousands of years. From a liquid window through which physicians felt they could view the body's inner workings. Numerous, somewhat accurate, physiologic theories arose from uroscopy. Then the importance of urinary diagnosis became exaggerated, and increasingly complex, until physicians required only the presence of urine, not patients, to diagnose disease. Uroscopy then escaped medical control, becoming first a home health aid and then a tool of uneducated practitioners. Thomas Brian led a medical rebellion against all uses of uroscopy and published the Pisse Prophet, a book that devastated uroscopy.

Observations on the Liber medicine orinalibus by Hermogenes.

Our report is based on a text of the philosopher Hermogenes entitled Liber medicine orinalibus now conserved in Cod. Casin. 69 (10th century), pp 545-551, of the Montecassino Archive. This text was written in Beneventano-Cassinese characters. The Liber medicine orinalibus presents an articulate description of urines, which is interesting because of the information it provides regarding the knowledge of medicine in the 2nd century AD. This text allows us to appreciate the level reached in urine diagnostics that were performed in the medical laboratory annexed to the 'Ospitium'.

A marvel of colors and ingredients. The story of urine test strip.

The history of the urinary test papers does not being in the post-war period. As early as the 1880's some practitioners and pharmacists tried to replace the complicated wet-chemical procedures and apparatus by "dry chemistry." The first popular test paper for sugar and albumin originated in England in 1883. Dry reagents for proving hematuria have been available since the beginning of this century. Until the 1930s a wide palette of commercial urine tests with "modern" brand names was established. A methodological breakthrough was created by the spot test chemistry inaugurated by the Austrian, Fritz Feigl, about 1920. Using the capillary properties of filter paper in enhancing color reactions he founded a new area of analytical chemistry. Many of the pioneers were recruited from Jewish scientists. In this lecture is proposed that their emigration and banishment as well as the Second World War have stopped the development of urinary diagnostics on the European continent. In the post-war period the American industry succeeded to the leading position in the researching and marketing of test papers. In 1956, the triumphal progress of the "stick tests" began with the "Clinistix" (Ames Company, today Bayer Diagnostic).

Critical and historical approach to Theophilus' De Urinis. Urine as blood's percolation made by the kidney and uroscopy in the middle ages.

In classical Greek medicine, neither Hippocrates nor Galen considered the condition of the urine to be an important sign of systemic diseases, and they did not relate its characteristics to definite illnesses, except in obvious cases of urinary tract disease. In their teaching, urine was used together with other physical signs as a prognostic indicator. With Theophilus, however, uroscopy gained an important role, and the appearance of the urine became pathognomic of specific diseases. De Urinis owed its popularity to this new approach and to its didactic character, as it was written as a practical handbook. After the 12th century, De Urinis occupied an assured position among the few ancient medical treatises that in Latin translation formed a worldwide teaching canon for medieval and Renaissance medical schools.