LECTURE VI. g59 



The saccharine diabetes is a disorder 

 which elucidates in a very striking manner 

 the nature and effect of the vital actions in 

 the process of secretion. If the stomach 

 does not digest vegetable food, so consider- 

 able a portion of it is sometimes imbibed 

 from the bowels, as to render the serum of 

 the blood turbid, though not sweet. In 

 the kidney, the vital actions combine the 

 vegetable substance into something resem- 

 bling sugar, which, being very soluble in 

 the water of the urine, in this form ob- 

 tains an outlet from the body. Thus those 

 who have trivial and temporary incompe- 

 tency to digest vegetable food, have also a 

 corresponding degree of saccharine dia- 

 betes, which is often unnoticed ; but when 

 the disorder of the stomach causing this 

 failure of digestion is established and per- 

 manent, the diabetes is constant, if vege- 

 table substances be eaten. * 



• In saying this, I by no means deny that diabetes 

 may not also result from disturbed vital actions in the 

 kidney. Dr. Sanders, of Edinburgh, informs me that 

 he has of late particularly attended to the state of the 

 medulla spinalis and vertebral nerves both in chorea 



s 2 



