Uroscopy

Uroscopy is the historic medical practice of visually examining a patient's urine for pus, blood, or other symptoms of disease. It dates back to ancient Egypt, Babylon, and India. It was particularly emphasized in Byzantine medicine.

By modern medical standards, uroscopy is considered to be a very limited means of obtaining evidence for the correct diagnosis of a patient's condition. In addition, many of the assumptions made by ancient physicians regarding uroscopy have proved to be quite incorrect and unscientific. However, visual examination of a patient's urine may provide preliminary evidence for a diagnosis, but is generally limited to conditions that affect the urinary system such as infection turbidity or blood infection or haemorrhage.

A uroscopy flask is a piece of glass that is circular at the bottom, while there is a thin neck at the top, and on top of that neck there is an opening for urine. In order for a doctor to examine a patients urine one would have to urinate into a uroscopy flask. A uroscopy flask is a glass bottle that must be transparent. If there is any color to the uroscopy flask, diagnosis could be wrong. In the process of uroscopy, color is very crucial to find diseases. If the uroscopy flask has a tint of color, the doctor may not be able effectively diagnose the patient. The glass must also have an even thickness throughout the flask. If the top is very thin glass and the bottom is thick glass, then the impurities in the top may look different from the top and bottom. While in all actuality they could be the very same impurities. The impurities in urine have varying shapes, uneven glass will corrupt the diagnosis.

The uroscopy wheel is a diagram that linked the color of urine to a particular disease. It usually has twenty different uroscopy flasks with urine of different colors aligned around the border of the circle. Each flask has a line that connects it to a summary of a particular disease. This allowed doctors to have a quick reference guide to twenty different types of urine.

The temperature at which the urine is examined is a very important factor to consider in the process of uroscopy. When a patient urinates, the urine will be warm, so it is necessary for it to stay warm for proper evaluation. The external temperature should be the same as the internal temperature. When the temperature of urine goes down the bubbles in it will change. Some of them will disappear, but some will remain. With the temperature decrease particles and impurities will be more difficult to evaluate. They will move toward the middle of the flask, then sink to the bottom. They will all mix, making it more difficult to see the impurities.

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