Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн

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According to the experiments of Diamare and Kuliabko, the islands of Langerhans furnish a secretion which aids in the inversion of grape sugar. We have shown at meetings of the Biological Department of the Hamburg Medical Society (Germany), and of the London Pathological Society, specimens of the pancreas of diabetic persons where there were changes only in the islands of Langerhans and none in other parts of the pancreas while, in one case, nearly the whole of the pancreas was destroyed by cirrhosis, but without any diabetes, for in this case the islands of Langerhans were not changed at all. It is interesting to note that these changes in the islands of Langerhans were also present in mild cases of diabetes.

Thus, the finding of sugar in the urine usually indicates the probability of changes in the pancreas. Even small quantities of sugar, such as appear only after starchy meals (alimentary glycosuria ex amylo) may be brought into connection with changes in the pancreas; for Wille^[130] found in Hamburg from a large series of autopsies, that in a considerable number of cases with alimentary glycosuria, there were also changes in the pancreas.