LECT. V. DIABETES. 107 



converted in the intestines into sugar, which passed into 

 the blood and urine. 



Hence, a diet entirely excluding starch, and composed 

 principally of neutral azotised substances, has been pre- 

 scribed as a remedy for diabetes ; and cases are mentioned 

 in which by this means a cure has been effected. 



Nevertheless, all that we have now said is contradicted 

 by the numerous experiments of Dr. Capezzuoli, which tend 

 to prove, that the quantity of sugar found in the urine of 

 diabetic patients is not at all proportionate to that of fecula 

 taken as aliment; and, that even under a diet composed 

 exclusively of neutral azotised substances, the same amount 

 of sugar is found as when the aliments contained much 

 fecula.* 



Dr. Capezzuoli found sugar in the contents of the in. 

 testines, and in the matters vomited by diabetic patients? 

 after a meal of starchy substances exclusively. But the 

 quantity of sugar was the same in a healthy man as in a 

 diabetic patient. This fact must always possess great im- 

 portance for the theory of digestion ; the transformation 

 of fecula into sugar being thus demonstrated by experi- 

 ment. 



Lastly, Dr. Capezzuoli found traces of sugar in the blood, 

 and in the contents of an abscess in a diabetic patient. The 

 abundant production of grape-sugar in these diseases, which 

 appear to be always accompanied with great wasting, re- 

 mains yet to be accounted for. 



Fatty Substances. We must, lastly, consider the di- 



* That by the exclusive use of animal food the quantity of sugar in the 

 urine of diabetic patients may be greatly reduced, is a fact which I myself, 

 in common with many others, have repeatedly noticed. But, as I have 

 elsewhere observed (A Treatise on Food and Diet, p. 500.) " I have never 

 seen this secretion entirely loose its saccharine condition by even the most 

 rigorous adoption of animal diet." J. P. 



