652 * DIABETES 



the concentration of reducing sugar in the salt solution and in the 

 plasma was the same, proving that even in life all of the titrable plasma 

 sugar is in a state of subdivision which lets it migrate through the inter- 

 stices of a collodion membrane. This would make the adsorption 

 idea seem untenable. 



Closely related to the question of the state of the sugar in the blood 

 is that of its state in the cells. Palmer^^ has studied the percentages 

 of sugar found in the various tissues in relationship to the plasma 

 sugar concentration. The titrable sugar of the tissues was found below 

 that of the blood in all organs except the liver. Of course, owing 

 to the large quantities of glycogen which occur in that organ and the 

 rapidity with which it breaks down into glucose, liver tissue would 

 naturally analyze high for sugar. In the muscles the titrable sugar 

 was found at 0.04 and 0.041 per cent, with blood sugar at 0.10 and 

 0.105 per cent. On the other hand the tissues generally when boiled 

 with dilute acid show a higher content of "combined" sugar than the 

 blood. This is most striking in the case of the liver and due by com- 

 mon consent to the polymers of glucose in that organ. 



It serves a useful purpose to consider the body as a whole as an 

 heterogeneous system made up of phases, and to assume that glucose 

 on entering the body distributes itself between these phases as acetic 

 acid may distribute itself between the fat droplets and the aqueous 

 part of milk; that glucose in a certain type of phase behaves as though 

 in water and in another type of phase rapidly undergoes chemical 

 changes. The blood is a tissue in which the dominant phase is in the 

 nature of a physical solvent for glucose, like water. In the cells the 

 dominant phases are of such a character that glucose on entering them 

 rapidly undergoes chemical change. But both types of phase are 

 present in both blood and cells although in different proportions. 

 The blood is therefore the phase par excellence in which to study the 

 " Sucre actuelle" and the tissues the place to study the "sucr6 vir- 

 tuelle." According to this conception "sucr4 virtuelle" would be 

 glucose in process of utilization or storage and not beyond recall, 

 hence chiefly glucose polymers. 



DIOSE'3 



Diose, glycollic aldehyde^ CH2OH-COH, the simplest sugar, of which there is 

 but one possible form, is highly sensitive to oxidative influences and, in vitro, 

 readily condenses with alkali to yield a complex mixture of higher sugars .and 

 saccharinic acids in a manner analogous to that manifested by the trioses. Not- 

 withstanding its instability and sensitiveness to oxidative changes in the tost 

 tube, it would appear that glycollic aldehyde is insusceptible of direct oxidation 

 in the body but that it may be converted into glucose, like other sugars, and then 

 utilized. When given intravenously at the rate of only 0.1 gm. per kg. per hour, 



"Jour. Biol. Chem., 1917 (30), 79. 



"Literature on diose- Mayer, P., Zeit. f. phAsiol. Chem., 1903 (3S\ 135; 

 Woodyatt, R. T., Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc, 1910 (r).!), 2109; Tarnas and Haer, 

 Biochein. Zeit., 1912 (41), 38G; Smedley, Ida, Jour. Thysiol., 1912 (44), 203; 

 Sansum, W. D. and Woodyatt, R. T., Jour. Biol. Chem., 1914 (17), 521. 



