The ill health of Jane Welsh Carlyle.

to Gotfredsen, Huang-Ti's famous textbook Nei Ching (Canon medicinae) contains a description of a disease which cannot be any other than diabetes mellitus. Hirsch says in 1883 that the earliest statements on diabetes mellitus are to be found in Sushruta's Ayur-Veda where Hessler's translation runs: 'Mellita urina laborantem quem medicus indicat, ille etiam incurabilis dictus est'. (When the doctor states that a man suffers from honey urine, he has also declared him incurable.) In another passage with a detailed description of the disease one reads: 'Dulcis fit urina, sudor et phlegma' (sweet is the urine, the sweat and the phlegm). Concerning the supposed discovery of sweet urine in India the very critical Gotfredsen says: (translation from the Danish original) 'The Indians are usually said to have been the first in world medicine to have had an idea about diabetes; they are said to have discovered that the urine tastes sweet and will be secreted in copious quantities. They know that the sufferer's (prameha), main symptom is abundant water secretion. There are 20 subdivisions of this prameha; in two of them, sugar urine (iksumeha) and honey urine (madhumeha) the urine has a sweet taste. Among numerous secondary symptoms there are noted: sweet taste in the mouth, thirst, loss of appetite, vomiting, drying, and boils. As a further symptom it is also stated that the urine will be sucked up by ants and other insects.' However, it is never mentioned that the doctor tastes the urine and Reinhold MUller who has exposed the whole problem to a careful analysis on the basis of the original writings, has not found any positive proof that the Indians knew of the sweet taste of the urine in diabetes. If Muller is right, how then shallwe regard the 'discovery' of ancient Indian medicine that has attracted such attention and has been mentioned by so many authorities and has been called 'the crown-jewel of the Indian healing art' by Fahraeus? However, this question belongs to the history of Indian medicine, and has little to do directly with my original question: the import of the term 'diabetes' in the works of Aretaeus and Galen: Does their term 'diabetes' mean diabetes mellitus or, at least in certain cases, diabetes insipidus?