DIABETES INSIPIDUS. 813 



more marked. The old reputation of the Carlsbad waters, as a cure 

 for diabetes, has vindicated itself most brilliantly, according to the ob- 

 servations of Seegen. According to him, there can no longer be any 

 doubt that in many cases of diabetes mellitus, a course of several 

 weeks at these springs results in an abatement of the thirst, a decrease 

 in the urination, a gain in weight, and in a disappearance of the 

 sugar from the patients urine. Whether or not these results be per- 

 manent, or merely transitory, still, in our present state of knowledge, 

 a course of waters at Carlsbad is the measure which should deserve tho 

 chief reliance as a remedy for diabetes mellitus. 8 



CHAPTER VIII. 



DIABETES INSIPIDT7S. 



DIABETES rasiPiDUS and diabetes mellitus, in spite of the agree- 

 ment of their most conspicuous symptoms, polyuria and unquenchable 

 thirst, are altogether distinct diseases. In the former, the urine does 

 not contain any foreign ingredients, the presence of which might ac- 

 count for the symptoms. 



It is true that not long since, in the urine of a patient with dia- 

 betes insipidus, Mosler discovered inosite, which is not among the 

 normal constituents of urine, and he advanced the hypothesis that 

 inosite played the same part in diabetes insipidus (inosuria) that 

 sugar does in diabetes mellitus (mellituria). But the very slight 

 amount of inosite excreted in the urine of Moslems patient would 

 render this idea improbable, and it is entirely refuted by one of my 

 pupils, Dr. Strauss, who wrote an excellent monograph on diabetes 

 insipidus.* 



After finding inosite in the urine of two cases of diabetes insi- 

 pidus in one case 0.1474 grm. in 6,700 ccm. of urine, in the other 

 1.508 grm. in 9,600 ccm. of urine Strauss caused three healthy 

 persons, in 'whose urine there was no inosite, to drink large quan 

 tities of water (about ten quarts in twenty-four hours) ; after this^ 

 inosite was found in the urine of all three patients, in about the same 

 proportion as in the patients with diabetes insipidus. These beautiful 

 experiments show that a body which normally exists in the kidneys, 

 liver, lungs, and muscles, but, as it undergoes changes in the body, is 

 not found in normal urine, may be excreted through the kidneys by 

 giving large quantities of water. 



* Die einfache zuckerlose Harnruhr, von Dr. F. Strauss, Tubingen, 1870. 

 Veilag der Lauppschen Buchhandkrog. 



