Beyond a sommelier: Thomas Willis and the birth of urine chemical analysis
BAUS ePoster online library. Folkard S. 06/21/21; 319110; p7-2
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Mr. Samuel Folkard
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Thomas Willis, famous for describing the anatomical arterial brain circle, became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford in 1666. Eight years after his death his lesser known work 'De Urinis dissertation epistolica' was published, where he described his method for the distillation of urine and its chemical analysis.
Prior to this, the spagyrists's work aimed to reform the complex transformation of the simple uroscopy of Galen and Hippocrates which they felt had become complicated and meaningless. Fernal (1497-1558), for example, thought it undignified for a physician to smell urine 'which becomes foul when garlic or rotten cheese are eaten, as it also does when the patient is suffering from ulcer of the kidneys…'. However he too reverted to traditional teachings describing a semicircle of bubbles at the top of the urine denoting migraine as the primary cause of illness. Progress towards early chemical analysis as proposed by Paracelsus was limited.
Willis did still recommend tasting the urine, and is credited as the first Western doctor to describe diabetic urine as 'wonderfully sweet, like sugar or honey'. His emphasis on the distillation of urine allowed 'a method more precise…which allows one to ascertain the quantity of salt and sulphur'. This allowed him to make remarkable conclusions for the time, listing subsiding odoema, nervousness, fevers after crisis and diuretics as causes of polyuria. In doing so, Willis the famous anatomist also gave medicine the foundations for the chemical analysis of urine we rely on today.
Prior to this, the spagyrists's work aimed to reform the complex transformation of the simple uroscopy of Galen and Hippocrates which they felt had become complicated and meaningless. Fernal (1497-1558), for example, thought it undignified for a physician to smell urine 'which becomes foul when garlic or rotten cheese are eaten, as it also does when the patient is suffering from ulcer of the kidneys…'. However he too reverted to traditional teachings describing a semicircle of bubbles at the top of the urine denoting migraine as the primary cause of illness. Progress towards early chemical analysis as proposed by Paracelsus was limited.
Willis did still recommend tasting the urine, and is credited as the first Western doctor to describe diabetic urine as 'wonderfully sweet, like sugar or honey'. His emphasis on the distillation of urine allowed 'a method more precise…which allows one to ascertain the quantity of salt and sulphur'. This allowed him to make remarkable conclusions for the time, listing subsiding odoema, nervousness, fevers after crisis and diuretics as causes of polyuria. In doing so, Willis the famous anatomist also gave medicine the foundations for the chemical analysis of urine we rely on today.
Thomas Willis, famous for describing the anatomical arterial brain circle, became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford in 1666. Eight years after his death his lesser known work 'De Urinis dissertation epistolica' was published, where he described his method for the distillation of urine and its chemical analysis.
Prior to this, the spagyrists's work aimed to reform the complex transformation of the simple uroscopy of Galen and Hippocrates which they felt had become complicated and meaningless. Fernal (1497-1558), for example, thought it undignified for a physician to smell urine 'which becomes foul when garlic or rotten cheese are eaten, as it also does when the patient is suffering from ulcer of the kidneys…'. However he too reverted to traditional teachings describing a semicircle of bubbles at the top of the urine denoting migraine as the primary cause of illness. Progress towards early chemical analysis as proposed by Paracelsus was limited.
Willis did still recommend tasting the urine, and is credited as the first Western doctor to describe diabetic urine as 'wonderfully sweet, like sugar or honey'. His emphasis on the distillation of urine allowed 'a method more precise…which allows one to ascertain the quantity of salt and sulphur'. This allowed him to make remarkable conclusions for the time, listing subsiding odoema, nervousness, fevers after crisis and diuretics as causes of polyuria. In doing so, Willis the famous anatomist also gave medicine the foundations for the chemical analysis of urine we rely on today.
Prior to this, the spagyrists's work aimed to reform the complex transformation of the simple uroscopy of Galen and Hippocrates which they felt had become complicated and meaningless. Fernal (1497-1558), for example, thought it undignified for a physician to smell urine 'which becomes foul when garlic or rotten cheese are eaten, as it also does when the patient is suffering from ulcer of the kidneys…'. However he too reverted to traditional teachings describing a semicircle of bubbles at the top of the urine denoting migraine as the primary cause of illness. Progress towards early chemical analysis as proposed by Paracelsus was limited.
Willis did still recommend tasting the urine, and is credited as the first Western doctor to describe diabetic urine as 'wonderfully sweet, like sugar or honey'. His emphasis on the distillation of urine allowed 'a method more precise…which allows one to ascertain the quantity of salt and sulphur'. This allowed him to make remarkable conclusions for the time, listing subsiding odoema, nervousness, fevers after crisis and diuretics as causes of polyuria. In doing so, Willis the famous anatomist also gave medicine the foundations for the chemical analysis of urine we rely on today.
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