Genetics of Diabetes mellitus

  • C. A. Clarke
  • G. S. Thompson
Chapter

Abstract

The hereditary basis of diabetes has been suspected for over 2,000 years. A detailed review by Frank (1957) of the contribution of the Indian physicians Charaka, Susruta and Vagbhata, in the period 400 B. C. — 500 A. D. shows that they considered heredity and over-indulgence in sweet foods as aetiological factors. Johnson (1961) reviewing diabetic inheritance, states that Rondelet (1628) believed that he encountered diabetes in father and daughter in three families, and though there is no record of the presence of glycosuria, this was the first written description that diabetes “runs in families”. Morton (1696) reported a family where three sons were lost in infancy “with a consumption from a dia-betes” and symptoms in a fourth son whose urine resembled honey. However, the fact that the child is recorded as doing well on a milk diet throws doubt on whether the condition was diabetes mellitus, and this and other reports such as Pavy (1885) must have included a number of patients with renal glycosuria.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1971

Authors and Affiliations

  • C. A. Clarke
    • 1
  • G. S. Thompson
    • 2
  1. 1.LiverpoolUK
  2. 2.AltrinchamUK

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