SCIENTIFIC PROCEEDINGS 



Abstracts of Communications. 

 Seventy-second meeting. 



University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, January iq, igi6. 

 President Lush in the chair. 

 40 (1104) 



On the relation of blood sugar to glycosuria in diabetes mellitus. 



By A. A. Epstein (by invitation). 



{From the Department of Pathology of Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York.] 



An extensive study on diabetic individuals and on animals in 

 which diabetes was produced by the removal of the pancreas, 

 reveals the fact that the current belief concerning the non-existence 

 of a relationship between hyperglycemia and glycosuria is erro- 

 neous. 



The error in the conclusions heretofore reached concerning this 

 matter arises from several circumstances, chief of which are: 

 First, the failure to recognize the fact that the blood volume in 

 animals and man is capable of undergoing considerable variations, 

 which affect the concentration and the total amount of the sugar 

 present in the blood; second, the employment of the "percentage" 

 of sugar found in the blood as a measure of hyperglycemia; third, 

 comparing the "percentage" of sugar in the blood as found by 

 single or isolated determinations, with the quantity of sugar 

 eliminated in the urine in a given period of time. 



Evidence is adduced to show that the volume of blood cir- 

 culating in the body is capable of variation spontaneously, and as 

 a result of the addition or abstraction of fluid. The degree of 

 variation of the blood volume (i. e., the relative blood volume) 



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