Acta Pharm. 50 (2000) 249-257
The frequency and dramatic symptomatology of renal stone disease have focused great medical attention on it since very early in history. Numerous medical authors have reported a high incidence rate of urolithiasis in the territory of Croatia. Besides the surgical approach to urolithiasis, a significant number of preserved Croatian recipes from the 15th to the early 19th centuries addressed the problem of lithiasis from the viewpoint of conservative therapy. Most of these recipes, written in all Croatian dialects and in Latin and Glagolitic alphabets, have been preserved in collections of folk recipes, but also in official medical manuscripts, or in other sources such as marginalia.
We have identified very similar elements recommended for curing this ailment in official as well as in vernacular recipe collections. The paper concentrates on two sources dealing with the conservative therapy of urolithiasis: Curationum Medicinalium Centuriae Septem (16th century) by Amatus Lusitanus, and recipes in the prayerbook of Ivan Ceperic (18th century). The analysis of these two sources is a model for identification of various influences and different strata in the evolution of therapeutic approaches to urolithiasis in a European context.
Keywords: urolithiasis, conservative therapy, history of pharmacy, history of medicine, Amatus Lusitanus, monastic medicine