A CASE OF DIABETES INSIPIDUS

Abstract

Johann Peter Frank¹in 1794 first gave a definition for diabetes insipidus when he described it as a long-continued abnormally increased secretion of non-saccharine urine which is not caused by a diseased condition of the kidneys. Thomas Willis,²however, had previously recognized a distinction between a saccharine and a non-saccharine diabetes by discovering the fact that, in certain cases of polyuria, the urine had a sweet taste. The two first cases of diabetes insipidus, reports of which were collected and published in English, were recorded by Dr. Simmons³two years before Frank's work appeared, and are of such historical importance that it is of interest to quote them in some detail. <h3>AN ACCOUNT OF TWO CASES OF POLYDIPSIA, OR EXCESSIVE THIRST</h3> "Almost all the modern nosologists have introduced into their systems a disease, to which, on account of the excessive thirst that forms its characteristic