As Terry Jones points out in his discussion of what was called "natural philosophy" in medieval times, not all science and medicine was based on superstition and a priori thinking (a la Aristotle). The chart is a uroscopy chart. Examination of urine was a relatively sophisticated methodology, and, yes, they did taste it (which was how they discovered diabetes).
Observation has always been the key to successful scientific inquiry, and whatever their faults, humans of the past were good at observation.
Perhaps better than we?
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