1. There is a sudden onset after exertion of weakness, feeble pulse, stupor, coma, death in a few hours.
2. Sudden headache, coma, death in a few hours.
3. After nausea, vomiting or a lung complication, there are headache, delirium, abdominal pain, rapid labored breathing, sweetish odor of the breath, stupor, rapid feeble pulse, coma and death within a few days.
Recovery.—Instances of cure in true diabetes are rare.
Treatment. Preventive.—The use of starchy and sugary articles of diet should be restricted in families with a marked disposition to this disease. Sources of worry should be avoided and he should lead an even quiet life, if possible, in an equable climate. Flannel and silk should be worn next to the skin, and the greatest care should be taken to promote its action. A lukewarm and, if tolerably robust, a cold bath should be taken every day. An occasional Turkish bath is useful.
Diet.—Let the patients eat food of easy digestion, such as veal, mutton and the like, and abstain from all sorts of fruit and garden stuff. In Johns Hopkins' Hospital these patients are kept for three or four days on the ordinary ward diet, which contains a moderate amount of carbo-hydrates, in order to ascertain the amount of sugar excretions. For two days more the starches are gradually cut off. They are then placed on the following standard non-carbohydrate diet.
Breakfast: 7:30, six ounces of tea or coffee; four ounces of beefsteak, mutton chops without bone, or boiled ham; one or two eggs.
Lunch: 12:30, six ounces of cold roast beef; two ounces celery, fresh cucumbers or tomatoes with vinegar, olives, pepper and salt to taste, five drams of whisky with thirteen ounces of water, two ounces of coffee without milk or sugar.
Dinner: 6:00 P. M., six ounces of clear bouillon; seven and a half ounces of roast beef; one and one-half drams of butter; two ounces of green salad with two and a half drams of vinegar, five drams of olive oil, or three tablespoonfuls of some well-cooked green vegetable: three sardines; five drams of whisky with thirteen ounces of water.
Supper: 9:00 P. M., two eggs, raw or cooked, thirteen ounces of water .