medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

and

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

, scatology or coprology is the study of

faeces Feces (also known as faeces American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, or fæces; : faex) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the ...

. Scatological studies allow one to determine a wide range of biological information about a creature, including its diet (and thus where it has been),

health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...

and

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical condi ...

s such as

tapeworms Cestoda is a class of parasitic worms in the flatworm phylum (Platyhelminthes). Most of the species—and the best-known—are those in the subclass Eucestoda; they are ribbon-like worms as adults, commonly known as tapeworms. Their bodies con ...

. A comprehensive study of scatology was documented by John Gregory Bourke under the title '' Rites of All Nations'' (1891), with a 1913 German translation including a foreword by

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

. An abbreviated version of the work was published as ''The Portable Scatalog'' in 1994.

Etymology

The word derives from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

( ) meaning "dung, feces"; ''coprology'' derives from the Greek of similar meaning.

Psychology

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

, a scatology is an obsession with

excretion Excretion is elimination of metabolic waste, which is an essential process in all organisms. In vertebrates, this is primarily carried out by the lungs, Kidney (vertebrates), kidneys, and skin. This is in contrast with secretion, where the substa ...

excrement Feces (also known as faeces American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, or fæces; : faex) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the ...

, or the study of such obsessions. In

sexual fetishism Sexual fetishism is a sexual fixation on an object or a body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has a fetish is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regarded as a mental disorder if it causes significant psychoso ...

, scatology or scatophilia (usually abbreviated ''scat'') refers to coprophilia, when someone is sexually aroused by fecal matter, whether in the use of feces in various sexual acts, watching someone defecating, or simply seeing the feces. Entire subcultures in sexuality are devoted to this fetish.

Literature

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

, "scatological" is a term to denote the literary trope of the grotesque body. It is used to describe works that make particular reference to excretion or excrement, as well as to

toilet humor Toilet humour or potty humour is a type of off-colour humour dealing with: defecation (including diarrhea and constipation), in which case it is called scatological humour (compare scatology); urination; flatulence, in which case it is called fla ...

. Well known for his scatological tropes is the late medieval fictional character of

Till Eulenspiegel Till Eulenspiegel (; ) is the protagonist of a European narrative tradition. A German chapbook published around 1510 is the oldest known extant publication about the folk hero (a first edition of is preserved fragmentarily), but a background i ...

. Another common example is

John Dryden John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration (En ...

's '' Mac Flecknoe'', a poem that employs extensive scatological imagery to ridicule Dryden's contemporary Thomas Shadwell. German literature is particularly rich in scatological texts and references, including such books as Collofino's ''Non Olet''. A case which has provoked an unusual amount of comment in the academic literature is Mozart's scatological humour. Smith, in his review of English literature's representations of scatology from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, notes two attitudes towards scatology. One of these emphasises the merry and the carnivalesque. This is found in

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He ...

and

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

. The other attitude is one of self-disgust and misanthropy. This is found in the works of the Earl of Rochester and

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

Sources

* Bakhtin, Mikhail, '' Rabelais and His World''. * Lewin, Ralph, ''Merde: excursions in scientific, cultural and socio-historical coprology''.

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, 1999. . * Susan Gubar,
The Female Monster in Augustan Satire
" ''Signs'' 3.2 (Winter, 1977): 380–394. * Jae Num Lee, ''Swift and Scatological Satire''.

University of New Mexico Press The University of New Mexico Press (UNMP) is a university press at the University of New Mexico. It was founded in 1929 and published pamphlets for the university in its early years before expanding into quarterlies and books. Its administrativ ...

, 1971. . * Smith, Peter J. (2012) Between Two Stools: Scatology and its Representation in English Literature, Chaucer to Swift,

Manchester University Press Manchester University Press is the university press of the University of Manchester, England, and a publisher of academic books and journals. Manchester University Press has developed into an international publisher. It maintains its links with t ...

David Palumbo, David (2012) Review of Between Two Stools: Scatology and its Representation in English Literature, Chaucer to Swift, by Peter J. Smith, ''Times Higher Education'' Oct 4, 2012
(Accessed Nov 2015) *

References

{{Toilets Feces

Etymology

Psychology

Literature

See also

Sources

References