278 PHLORIDZIN DIABETES 



Lepine 's 10 discovery that in phloridzin poisoning the blood 

 of the renal vein contains more sugar than that of the renal 

 artery may be regarded as in the same line. Asher, 11 after 

 stimulating the chorda tympani found such a marked in- 

 crease of sugar in the blood passing from the submaxillary 

 salivary gland that it must necessarily be assumed that under 

 irritation sugar passes out of the glandular cells into the 

 blood. It may be conceived that in an analogous manner the 

 kidney under the stimulus of phloridzin becomes able to give 

 off an excess of sugar to the blood. Frank and Isaak, how- 

 ever, would explain the essential character of phloridzin 

 diabetes as consisting of an acquired inability on the part of 

 the kidneys to fix the glucose brought to them by the blood 

 and utilize it in their own metabolism, and as a consequence 

 becoming permeable to the sugar and excreting it. Just 

 as the liver in pancreatic diabetes and with the very same 

 failure the kidney attempts to make good the loss by con- 

 tinuous reformation. The question whether the phloridzin 

 kidney really acquires the ability to produce sugar de novo 

 is one which apparently should receive further study. 



The hypothesis that the influence of phloridzin is pro- 

 ductive of "a general glandular diabetes with predominant 

 involvement of the kidneys" and of a disturbance of the 

 vital sugar fixation 12 finds some support in the fact that, 

 as proved upon a dog with a biliary fistula, after injection 

 of phloridzin sugar is to be found not only in the urine 

 but also in the bile. 13 No constant direct influence from 

 phloridzin upon the formation of glycogen in the liver has 

 been successfully proved by perfusion experiments. 14 It 

 may, therefore, be conjectured that the sugar elimination in 

 phloridzin diabetes results from activity of the glandular 

 epithelium in much the same way as milk sugar is produced 



11 L. Asher and Karaulow, Biochem. Zeitschr., 25, 36, 1910. 

 U E. Frank and S. Isaak, Arch. f. exper. Pathol., 64, 326, 1910. 

 U R. T. Woodyatt (Chicago), Jour, of Biol. Chem., 7, 133, 1910. 

 14 B. S. Schondorff and F. Suckrow (Bonn), Pfliiger's Arch., 138, 538, 1911; 

 opposed view, K. Grube, ibid., 128, 1909, and 139, 1911. 



