April 22, 2008

It’s all in the urine

With a renewed interest into all things medieval, we have seen programmes that are following how they people of the time thought, lived and died. But before this interest blossomed there were research teams who have been working relentlessly on finding out the facts on how these people really lived and thought.

Scientists at the Imperial College, London, have been studying the way that medieval physicians determined what was wrong with their patients. Now in those days it was only the rich and powerful who had the luxury of a medical man and he had to get it right.

They used urine as the primary source of diagnosis, they would get the sample and by holding up to the light, surprisingly urine holds a lot of detail of what the patient has been eating, lifestyle and even inheritance. The smell, colour and even the taste was used in order to find out what was wrong with the patient.

Source [Times]