ABSTRACT
The medical nature of the drama was signalled by the clothing and actions of the physician peering into a flask, work that would have been well understood as uroscopy, the identification of the internal state of the body through the reading of the colour and state of a patient's urine. In Ghisi's hands, the engraving is no longer a sequential narrative from diagnosis to treatment but a moment of intense drama. Moreover, by removing the physician and the scene of diagnosis, Ghisi created a much calmer scene, one where the inherent drama lies in the tension of what is to come, not what had already happened. This chapter explores the ways in which barbers, surgeons, and doctors competed, both in print and in practice, to bring humoral imbalances to the surface through cups and lancets.
