Sweet pees

Damien Ihrig, MA, MLIS
Curator, John Martin Rare Book Room

Happy November, friends, which just happens to be National Diabetes Month. So naturally, this month's newsletter will feature the sweet, sweet research notes of a classic work connecting the sugary characteristics of urine to diabetes.

Physicians have long used the characteristics of urine to help diagnose illness (the analysis of which was called uroscopy), including its color, transparency, smell, and...taste. The image here shows a urine color wheel from Ketham's Fasciculus medicinae (we have an unpainted copy of the 1522 Fasciculus with the urine wheel illustration, but this image comes from the 1500 edition held by the National Library of Medicine).

These physician sommeliers (smell-iers?) used uroscopy to help measure an individual's humoral balance. While off about the humors, they were on to something about urine being a window into someone's health.

Matthew Dobson (1735?-1784), an 18th-century English physician, was both an experimental physiologist as well as a skillful and experienced clinician. His Experiments and observations on the urine in a diabetes (1774) is a case study on one of his diabetic patients as well as an analysis of five experiments conducted on the blood and urine of all his diabetic patients.

Although not the first to describe the sweet smell and taste of urine from diabetic patients, he is the first to determine the sweetness is from sugar present in the urine.

Peer below to learn more about our copy of Experiments and observations on the urine in a diabetes. Urine gonna love it!

Stay well and happy reading!

Hours

The JMRBR is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and by appointment on Friday. For more information, please contact me at damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154.

Book of the month

DOBSON, MATTHEW (1735?-1784). Experiments and observations on the urine in a diabetes. In: Medical observations and inquiries: by a society of physicians in London, v.5. Printed in London for Thomas Cadell, 1776. 22 cm tall.

Matthew Dobson was an English physician and experimental physiologist renowned for his pioneering work on diabetes. Unfortunately, not much is personally known about Dobson. Born in Yorkshire, he initially pursued his education at Glasgow University, intending to follow in his minister father's footsteps. He eventually chose medicine, though, and obtained his MD from Edinburgh University in 1756.

Dobson's medical career flourished in Liverpool, where he became a prominent physician. He was appointed to the Liverpool Infirmary in 1770 and played a significant role in the local medical community. He was also involved in helping to establish the Liverpool Society of Artists in 1769 (which eventually became the modern-day Liverpool Academy of Arts).

He wrote only one book, A medical commentary on fixed air [carbon dioxide] (1779), but conducted a number of experiments and published many articles on his findings. His most notable contribution to medicine was his work on diabetes. In 1774, Dobson identified the presence of sugar in the urine of diabetic patients, a groundbreaking discovery at the time. 

Experiments and observations provided crucial insights into the nature of diabetes and challenged the prevailing belief that the disease was located in the kidneys.

Dobson's work extended beyond diabetes; he was also involved in medical research on influenza and collaborated with other prominent physicians of his time. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1778 and contributed to various medical and scientific societies.

In his later years, Dobson retired to Bath due to poor health and continued to be active in the medical community until his death on July 25, 1784.

Our copy of Medical observations and inquiries, volume 5 (of which, Experiments and observations is one entry) is in great shape. It has been rebound with a modern cover in an "antique style." It features a fun, smooth Cambridge panel with a sprinkle decoration and stamped filigree (h/t to UI Libraries Collections Conservator, Beth Stone). There are numerous foldout illustrations for many of the articles in Medical observations and inquiries, but unfortunately, none for Experiments and observations.

Contact me to take a look at this book or any others from this or past newsletters: damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154.