Lectures on diabetes : including the Bradshawe lecture delivered before the Royal College of Physicians on August 18th, 1890 / by Robert Suandby.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diabetes : including the Bradshawe lecture delivered before the Royal College of Physicians on August 18th, 1890 / by Robert Suandby. 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.

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    lactation, and reduces copper salts, though less actively than glucose, so that its presence is liable to be mistaken for that of the latter. The reduction of copper in Fehling's or Trornmer's test is so very generally regarded clinically as proof of glycosuria that great interest attaches to the recent discovery of the not uncommon occurrence of a non- saccharine body in the urine which possesses this power in a high degree. Schmiedeberg and Meyer have shewn that this substance is glycuronic acid. It is found in the urine after the administration of various drugs, chloral hydrate, croton chloral, camphor, phenacetin, morphia, chloroform and curare. Ashdown has met with it in the urine of a young man, aged twenty-four, who enjoyed perfect health, or at least a complete sense of well-being. Glycuronic acid (C6H10O7) occurs in the urine in combination with urea, but the nature of the compound has not been definitely determined. Ashdown recommends that in all doubtful cases the urine should be fermented. Glucose is found in minute quantities in healthy blood, chyle and muscle, but some doubt exists as to whether it is present physiologically in the liver. It is formed by the action of diastatic ferments upon other carbo-hydrates during the process of digestion. Glucose so formed is absorbed and a large part reaches the liver where it is transformed into glycogen. Glycogen (6(C0H10O5) +H20) is formed in the liver cells in the form of amorphous granules collected around their nuclei, and is irregularly distributed through the liver. It is soluble in water, but not readily diffusible, and gives a deep red colour with iodine solution. With diastatic ferments, or when boiled with a mineral acid it forms grape sugar. The following directions for its preparation are taken from Landois and Stirling:— Let a rabbit have a hearty meal and kill it three or four
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