Early debates on urination in ancient Greek medicine

Abstract

Although considerable effort has been made by scholars to reconstruct the discovery of renal function in modern times, little attention has been paid to clarifying the early steps of ideas about urine production in Antiquity. In the oldest literature, the site of urine formation remained undetermined. Later, the bladder was considered the central uropoietic place. The first documents advocating the role of the kidneys are attested in the Hippocratic Corpus. In the IV century, Aristotle provided a theory of kidney activity. The Hellenistic and Greek-Roman physicians were aware of the fundamental role that the kidneys play in urine production. The kidneys filtered the urine and separated it from the blood. Thus, the excreting activity of the kidneys was postulated in ancient Greek medicine. This historical note describes the initial development of theories on uropoiesis and the early emergence of ideas that will provide a basic conceptual framework in modern medicine.