Simple Tests of Renal Function in Health and Disease
- 1 February 1957
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in A.M.A. Archives of Internal Medicine
- Vol. 99 (2) , 176-189
- https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1957.00260020012003
Abstract
Although the naked eye examination of the urine was extensively practiced from the earliest historical times, the first valid clinical deduction from urine analysis was recorded in India and China some 2500 years ago.1In the West, Thomas Willis (1621-1675 A. D.) was the first to use urine analysis in differential diagnosis, having noted that the urine of patients with diabetes mellitus was sweet, whereas that of other patients with polyuria (diabetes insipidus) was not.1In the Middle Ages detailed inspection of the urine was widely used to diagnose all the ills of mankind, from pregnancy (Fig. 1) to phthisis. Ultimately this medieval and renaissance hocus-pocus was effectively quashed in 1637 A. D. by Thomas Brian's blunt broadside, quaintly entitled: "The Pisse-Prophet, or Certaine Pisse-Pot Lectures, wherein are newly discovered the old fallacies, deceit, and jugling of the Pisse-Pot science used by all those (whether Quacks and EmpiricksThis publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: