Inmedicine andbiology,scatology orcoprology is the study offaeces.

Scatological studies allow one to determine a wide range of biological information about a creature, including itsdiet (and thuswhere it has been),health anddiseases such astapeworms.

A comprehensive study of scatology was documented byJohn Gregory Bourke under the titleScatalogic Rites of All Nations (1891), with a 1913 German translation including a foreword bySigmund Freud. An abbreviated version of the work was published asThe Portable Scatalog in 1994.^[1]

The word derives from theGreekσκῶρ (GENσκατός) meaning "dung, feces";coprology derives from the Greekκόπρος of similar meaning.^[2][3][4]

Inpsychology, a scatology is an obsession withexcretion orexcrement, or the study of such obsessions.

Insexual fetishism, scatology or scatophilia (usually abbreviatedscat) refers tocoprophilia, when someone issexually aroused by fecal matter, whether in the use of feces in various sexual acts, watching someonedefecating, or simply seeing the feces. Entire subcultures in sexuality are devoted to this fetish.^{[citation needed]}

Inliterature, "scatological" is a term to denote the literarytrope of thegrotesque body. It is used to describe works that make particular reference to excretion or excrement, as well as totoilet humor. Well known for his scatological tropes is the late medieval fictional character ofTill Eulenspiegel. Another common example isJohn Dryden'sMac Flecknoe, a poem that employs extensive scatological imagery to ridicule Dryden's contemporaryThomas Shadwell. German literature is particularly rich in scatological texts and references, including such books asCollofino'sNon Olet.^[5] A case which has provoked an unusual amount of comment in the academic literature isMozart's scatological humour.^{[citation needed]} 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 inChaucer andShakespeare. The other attitude is one of self-disgust and misanthropy. This is found in the works of theEarl of Rochester andJonathan Swift.^[6]

• Coprolite – fossilized faeces
• Coprophilia – faeces fetish
• Stool sample – sample of faeces for studying
• Urolagnia – urination fetish

• Bakhtin, Mikhail,Rabelais and His World.
• Lewin, Ralph,Merde: excursions in scientific, cultural and socio-historical coprology.Random House, 1999.ISBN 0-375-50198-3.
• 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, 1971.ISBN 0-8263-0196-7.
• Smith, Peter J. (2012) Between Two Stools: Scatology and its Representation in English Literature, Chaucer to Swift,Manchester University Press^[7]
• Henderson, Jeffrey (1991).The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy.Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-506685-5.