All seems infected that the infected spy, And all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye.
The liver is the lazaret of bile, But very rarely executes its function, For the first passion stays there such a while That all the rest creep in and form a junction. Like knots of vipers on a dunghill’s soil, Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction, So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail, Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call’d “central.” Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse CCXV.
The examination of the urine as an aid to diagnosis has been resorted to for many centuries, but the processes of to-day are, of course, vastly different from and hardly to be compared with those of earlier times, when blind ignorance caused urine-examining, or “water-casting,” to be a mere mockery. The practice, says Dr. Bucknill, arose “like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical interdicts upon the medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and monks, being unable to visit their former patients, are said first to have resorted to the expedient of divining the malady, and directing the treatment upon simple inspection of the urine.” The College of Physicians, in an old statute, denounced it as belonging only to charlatans, and members were not allowed to give advice on inspection only. Shakespeare has frequently referred to it, as have also many others of the old writers, who condemn strongly what was then a shallow deception, but what has now become, by the light of knowledge, one of the most important diagnostic aids to many diseases.
Host. Thou art a Castilian, king urinal! * * * Pardon, a word, monsieur, mock-water. Dr. Caius. Mock-vater! vat is dat? Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III.
If thou could’st, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo. Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.
Carry his water to the wise woman. Twelfth Night, Act III., Sc. IV.
Falstaff. What says the doctor to my water? Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.
Others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose Cannot contain their urine: for affection, Master of passion, sways it to the mood Of what it likes or loathes. Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Sc. I.
Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke? Port. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Macbeth, Act II., Sc. II.
When he makes water, his urine is congealed ice. Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II.