Recent advances in endocrinology / by A.T. Cameron.

  • Alexander Thomas Cameron
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Recent advances in endocrinology / by A.T. Cameron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    169/402 (page 155)
    blood sugar was raised to 0-18 per cent. A further injection was ineffective. The alkaline reserve dropped to 46 per cent, of normal, the plasma urea increased to 0*92 per cent. Kidney secretion almost ceased. The small amount of urine that was excreted scarcely reduced Fehling’s solution and contained no albumin. The animal died in hypoglycaemic coma, the blood sugar being only 0 03 per cent, in spite of previous glucose injections. At post-mortem all the organs were apparently normal. The liver was not fatty either by macroscopic or by micro¬ scopic examination, but contained no trace of glycogen. Except for marked emaciation the dog showed no special difference from depancreatized dogs dying from the immediate diabetes. The only lesions found were in the kidneys, which exhibited an old interstitial sclerosis, plus a recent epithelial nephritis, the tubules especially exhibiting a fatty degeneration. Hedon considered that the animal probably died from a combination of uraemic and insulin intoxications. This end picture, emphasizing a final maladjustment of response to insulin, may perhaps have an application to the final stage of insulin treatment in man. The therapeutic use of insulin is still much too recent to decide this question. The diabetic child affords the most interesting material for prolonged study of the effect of insulin. Priscilla White (177) has recently dealt with a number of interesting points concerning the etiology, treatment and prognosis of his condition. She considers that at the onset of his diabetes he shows a marked physical precocity, an overgrowth (eighteen months in advance of his chronological age) which corresponds to obesity in adults. There is a somewhat less degree of mental precocity. She gives a most hopeful prognosis. As regards the general results of insulin therapy the remarks of Bowen have pertinence (21) : “ The adult diabetic who is treated with insulin compares quite