Diabetes Information

Diabetes is a disease known from ancient times. Sweetness of urine, weakness, boils, gangrene and drowsiness were described as features of Diabetes. A restricted diet was recommended to fat patients, while a liberal diet was prescribed for the lean. References to a disease characterized by intense thirst and excessive and sweet urine are also found in ancient Japanese, Chinese and Arabic medical texts.
In the second century A.D., Araetius of Cappadocia was the first European to give a fairly complete description of the disease. He named it diabetes, a term derived from a Greek word, diabetos, meaning a siphon, because in this malady fluids are not retained in the body. The urine of a patient with diabetes was sweet and the sweetness was due to sugar.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many suggestions were put forward about the cause of diabetes such as disorders of kidney, stomach or nervous system, consumption of alcohol and fatigue. In 1788, Thomas Cawley reported a case of diabetes due to stones in pancreas or sweetbread. He made a remarkable suggestion that ‘diabetes could occur due to damage to the pancreas.’
Life was quite miserable for people with diabetes before the discovery of insulin. Overweight middle aged diabetics could carry on with a markedly restricted diet. Young diabetics barely survived for a couple of years before finally succumbing to diabetic coma or some infection. A diabetic woman rarely conceived and if lucky to do so, often had a stillbirth. Surgery in a diabetic was disastrous.

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