A very rare mid-17th century carved oak 'piss-pot' lid or cover, Dutch/English, circa 1630


Circular, and with moulded edge, carved with a scene depicting a turbanned servant attending on a doctor, the doctor seated on an ornate chair upon a dais, wearing a hat, ruff and doublet, examining a urinal or urine flask held aloft in his right hand, 24cm diameter x 1.5cm high
|This rare survival is carved with a depiction of 'uroscopy', or the art of examining urine, a process which involved the decanting of a patient's urine into a flask, then examined by a uroscopist for colour, clarity, smell and taste. It was a practice which allowed for a diagnosis without the doctor every having to physically see or examine the patient. In King Henry IV, Sir John Falstaff's page takes his master's 'water' to the doctor, reporting back later with the verdict. Here, the patient's sample appears to have been brought to their physician by a servant, or possibly an apothecary. The practice was outlawed in England by the College of Physicians in 1555. Thomas Linacre, the founder of the College, banned apothecaries from carrying the water of their patients to the doctor and afterwards dispensing medicine on the basis of the doctor's opinion. It is very likely that popular demand saw the practice continue.The analysis of urine was practiced by the Mesopotamians at least 6,000 years ago and, around 400 B.C., Hippocrates recommended its practice to physicians. Physicians' heavy reliance on uroscopy for diagnoses was questioned by some as early as the 14th century. After several other works condemning this practice when used as a sole tool for diagnoses, Thomas Brian, a Colchester physician, published The Pisse Prophet, or Certaine Pisse-Pot Lectures in 1637. James Hart had earlier translated a 16th century text by the Dutch physician Peter Forestus, publishing it as The Arraignment of Urines in 1623. Epiphaniae medicorum, published in 1506, depicts a seated doctor examining a flask of urine, with a page or apothecary before him, very similar to the scene carved here.