On the relation between diabetes and food and its application to the treatment of the disease / by Arthur Scott Donkin.

Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation between diabetes and food and its application to the treatment of the disease / by Arthur Scott Donkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    82/204 (page 70)
    SUBOXWATION IN DIABETES. diminislied absorption of oxygen and a corre- spondently decreased elimination of carbonic acid by diabetics, consuming mucli larger quantities of food, with a due proportion of fat, than liealtby persons. So that, with an increase of combus- tible matter, there is diminished combustion. If then, in the advanced stage of the malady, fat is consumed by a diabetic, so much in excess that its absorption renders the blood serum milky, and there is at the same time a great decrease in the normal temperature of the body accompanied by a decidedly diminished absorption of oxygen and elimination of carbonic acid, the question naturally arises, what becomes of all this fatty matter, to what purpose is it applied, and in what form and through what channel does it make its exit from the body ? Surely these data afford very strong presump- tive evidence that there must be, under such circumstances, diminished and progressively de- creasing oxidation in the system of the fatty principles of the food. Especially when consi- dered in connection with the fact that in the pri- mary stage of the disease, in which the whole of the sugar is formed out of the amylaceous ali-