History of Diabetes

History Diabetes

Diabetes today is a common disease, particularly in developed countries. With the availability and generally low health quality of fast foods, an increasing amount of people in countries such as the United States are diagnosed with the disease every year (Health.Savvy). In order to handle the disease effectively, it is important to understand its manifestations in the world today. It is formally known as Diabetes mellitus. Persons with the disease have high blood sugar levels, and their metabolism is erratic. Insulin is at the centre of the disease, with symptoms caused either by low levels of the hormone or a resistance to it, as well as insufficient levels of insulin that is secreted. Common symptoms, according to the Health.Savvy Website, include excessive urination, thirst, an increase of fluid intake, and blurred vision. In order to form a deeper understanding of diabetes in all its forms, it is also helpful to investigate its history.

Although the discovery of diabetes as we know it today is commonly placed in the first century AD, research has uncovered far older references to it in Ancient Egypt and India. According to the Canadian Diabetes Association, for example the Egyptian physician Hesy-Ra of the third Dynasty mentioned the disease on the Ebers Papyrus roughly in the year 1552 BCE. While not naming the disease as such, Hesy-Ra listed remedies for one of the common symptoms -- excessive urine. According to the DiabetesHealth.com Website, another early reference to diabetes occurs in Ancient India. Here, it was nearly 5,000 years ago that the physician Susruta described a disease in which a large amount of urination was a common symptom. According to the physician, it was brought on by overindulging in rice, flour and sugar. The disease finally became known by its modern name in the first century A.D. when the Greek physician Aretaeus gave it the name "diabetes." This was derived from the Greek word meaning "siphon," because of the thirst that formed part of the disease. The observation was that the body acted as a siphon for water, taking it in and discharging it in the form of urine.

It was only during the 18th century that scientists began to make progress in finding treatments for the disease. Even in the second half of the 17th century did doctors prescribe apparently absurd remedies such as viper's flesh, red coral, sweet almonds, and fresh flowers for diabetes sufferers (DiabetesHealth.com). Of course, these had little effect, and sufferers were generally condemned to death. The first breakthrough before the 1920s came in the form of Dr. John Rollo, who built on the work of Dr. Dobson of Liverpool to prescribe the first relatively successful treatment of the disease: a diet that was high in fat and meat and low in grains and breads. This improved the prognosis significantly, and for the first time in history could diabetes sufferers expect an extended life.