Reviews 1. Researches on the nature and treatment of diabetes, by F.W. Pavy, M.D., F.R.S., second edition, revised and enlarged. London : J. Churchill & Sons, 1859.

Date:
1869
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reviews 1. Researches on the nature and treatment of diabetes, by F.W. Pavy, M.D., F.R.S., second edition, revised and enlarged. London : J. Churchill & Sons, 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    /49 506 REVIEWS, h—Researches on The Nature and Treatsient of Diabetes. By F. W. Pavt, M.D., F.R.S. Second Edition. Revised and Enlarged London: J. Churchill & Sons. 1859. In 1848, Dr Claude Bernard of Paris published the details of an interesting series of physiological experiments demonstrating the constant presence of sugar in the animal economy in a state of health. Until this period, it was believed that the vegetable kingdom alone possessed the power of forming sugar, and that any which might be found in the urine, blood, &c., must have been derived from saccharine or amylaceous food. Observing that plants obtained from the soil and from the atmosphere alone^ the principles of the saccharine matter they so abundantly con- tain, M. Bernard set himself to determine the following ques- tions:—Do animals form sugar in a similar manner by elaborating within their organs the primitive elements which compose sufrar? or, IS the sugar which is found in the animal body the product of the digestion of saccharine and amylaceous substances? The conclusions he deduced from his investigation were,—1. Sugar IS constantly present in the blood of the heart and in the liver of man and of animals, and is found in the liver during the healthy process of assimilation. 2. Sugar is found in the animal economy independently of saccharine or amylaceous food. 3. Su.^ar is generated in the liver before the birth of the animal, and con- sequently, before any direct ingestion of aliment of any kind. 4. Ihe production ot sugar is a function of the liver, and is con- nected with the integrity of the pneumogastric nerve. These views met with so much and so prompt confirmation by many experimental observers, that M. Bernard's theories and si^eculative inferences were received and adopted with his (acts, and at once placed in all medical text-books. His highly original and memorable observations—or discoveries as they were 'termed— opened the way to farther researches, of which he continued the earnest pioneer The principle itself, from which the sugar takes Its origin in the liver, was soon after discovered and isolated; and, as sugar was supposed by Bernard to constitute its phvsio- ipgicai purpose, this principle was named by him glycogen or glycogenic matter. ^ '