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Article: The twenty-jordan series: an illustrated Middle English Uroscopy text.
- Article from:
- ANQ
- Article date:
- June 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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One cannot read far in the history of medieval medicine before learning that the urine flask, also known as a jordan or a matula, is universally recognized as a primary attribute of the physician in medieval art. (1) The association is eminently reasonable, given the central importance of the macroscopic inspection of urine in the medieval healer's diagnostic and prognostic toolkit, an importance at least as great as that of microscopic and chemical urinalysis in modern medicine. Medieval medical writings, both Latin and vernacular, reflect this centrality: a rough measure for the Latin tradition can be seen in the subject index of Thorndike and Kibre's A Catalogue of ...