HYPOGLYCEMIA IN DIABETES ASSOCIATED WITH OBSTRUCTION OF THE PANCREATIC DUCT

Certain recent experimental work has raised points for discussion in connection with an unusual case of hypoglycemia which seemed difficult to interpret clinically and pathologically at the time of autopsy.

In recent years it has been shown that in totally depancreatized dogs kept under proper treatment with insulin but not fed raw pancreas a condition is likely to supervene in which weakness suddenly develops and the dog shows decreased glycosuria and lower blood sugar, becomes sensitive to insulin and finally without administration of insulin dies in a state of hypoglycemia. At autopsy such an animal shows severe fatty degeneration of the liver. Fisher,¹ among other workers, described this condition incidentally in a depancreatized dog which died with a blood sugar content of only 0.013 per cent. The pathologic condition of the liver has been discussed in experiments described by Allan, Bowie, Macleod and Robinson,² who, however, did not