Sir Thomas More was possessed of great wit and a fine flow of spirits, which even the approach of death could not dispel. Upon receiving notification that he had been condemned to death by his master, King Henry VIII., “he called for his urinal, and having made water in it, he cast it and viewed it (as physicians do) a pretty while; at last he sware soberly that he saw nothing in that man’s water but that he might live if it pleased the king.”—(“Ajax,” p. 61.)
Thibetan doctors examine the urine of the patient; then churn it and listen to the noise made by the bubbles.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)
“How to vex her,
And make her cry so much that the physician,
If she fall sick upon it, shall want urine
To find the same by, and she, remediless,
Die in her heresy.”
(“Scornful Lady,” v. 1, Beaumont and Fletcher.)
The people of Europe did not restrict their examinations to the egestæ of human beings; they were equally careful to scrutinize every day the droppings of the hounds, hawks, and other animals used in the chase.—(See “Ajax.”)
In the farce of “Master Pathelin” (A.D. 1480), the hero, “in his ravings abuses the doctors ... for not understanding his urine.... Charlatans especially exploited in this field of medicine, practising it illegally in the country under the name of ‘water-jugglers’ and ‘water-judges.’ Such men still practise in Normandy and in certain northern provinces of France.”—(“Med. in the Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 82.)