ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights the role of power structures, market dynamics, and dominant discourses in the development, establishment, and assertion of scientific "truths". It presents the role of uroscopy remained relatively stable in popular medical culture but some change did take place within the learned medical world. The book examines to reconstruct the meanings and functions of uroscopic practice in everyday life, to explore the reasons for the deep and enduring trust in it, and to point out the driving forces behind the growing criticism of uroscopy. It focuses on the patients and their relatives and seeks to reconstruct their interpretations and experiences; it partakes, at the same time, in endeavors to establish a history of medicine "from below", from the patient's perspective. The book considers the relatively long time-span, from the late middle Ages to the nineteenth century.
