EXCESSIVE
SECRETION OF URINE
This disease is characterized by
copious discharges of sweet urine of a pale yellowish or greenish yellow color,
and sometimes of a faint sweetish odor. The saccharine matter resembles grape
sugar. The first symptoms which usually attracts the attention of the patient
is the frequency of the calls to pass urine, and he generally soon notice that
the quantity is increased, and sometimes he accidentally discovers that it is
sweetish to the taste. The patient soon begins to be trouble with great thirst,
the appetite often becomes craving, the mouth and throat dry and perched. There
is a sensation of hollowness or sinking, with faintness at the pit of the
stomach, and other dyspeptic symptoms with great debility and emaciation. The
quantity of urine discharged usually varies from ten to twenty, and sometimes
from thirty to fifty paints or more in twenty-four hours, and this often for
weeks or months together. The specific gravity or weight of the urine is
generally increased owing to the present of sugar. If sugar is present in any
quantity you can detect it very readily short of tasting. Add a little yeast to
some of the urine and set it down in a warm place, and if there is sugar
present it will begin to ferment within twenty-four hours, whereas healthy
urine will not go through the same process. Albumen is also sometimes present.
This disease is very slow in its progress, sometimes lasting for many years,
and in many cases patients die of some other affection, such as consumption,
disease of the brain, liver, or stomach. Occasionally they die early in the
disease from exhaustion occasioned by the profuse secretion.
We sometimes have a profuse glow of
urine without the presence of sugar, caused by various nervous affections,
especially hysteria, but this form of the disease is not usually serious.
The cause of sugar being found in
the urine in diabetes has been long a question with medical writers. Some have
supposed that the stomach and bowels are chiefly in fault, others that the
liver secretes an excessive quantity in this disease, and some of the latest
writers attribute it to deficient action of the lunge, in that the sugar which
is formed in the blood which comes from the liver on its arrival in the lunges
fails to be decomposed by the oxygen of the air, and to disappear as in health,
but passes in the general circulation to the kidneys, and is there separated
from the blood.
Treatment
General measures are perhaps more
important than medicine, although the letter bay be of great service. As to
diet it is necessary that it should be nutritious, but that it should contain
neither sugar nor starch, therefore potatoes and fine flour in every form
should be omitted. Give bran or canel bread with butter, beef or mutton, fowls
and eggs, also cabbage and turnips. Let the patient drink moderately at a time,
but in all about enough to relieve his thirst. Let him spend his time in the
open air in taking active exercise, and follow the direction as to particular
exercises contained in the section on consumption.
Carbo veg:
Give a dose of this remedy night and
morning for two weeks, then continue it if there is any improvement, and as
long as long as the patient continues to mend. After the above remedy has
ceased to act, give Mercurius Viv. Night and morning, and continue it
as long as there is any improvement. Veratrum can follow the above if it is
needed, also Natrum Mur.
