The determination of glucose tolerance.

One of the earliest examinations of the response of the human organism to the administration of sugar was made by Worm-Muller (1884), who published observations on the alimentary glycosuria of two healthy men. He found that these subjects, after being for some time on a diet very low in carbohydrate, showed a detectable glycosuria when given 50 gm. of glucose or sucrose or 100 gm. of lactose. This work was followed by that of Hofmeister (1889), who used dogs. His paper has the greater interest because it introduces the terms 'assimilation limit' and 'tolerance.' The former was used to imply the highest dose of sugar that the individual could take without showing glycosuria, while the latter was used, in speaking of certain diabetics of the milder type, to denote that dose a small increase upon which would produce glycosuria. Hofmeister did not, however, preserve any rigid distinction between the terms, and in fact, as Sansum and Wilder (1917) pointed out, what are really assimilation-limit determinations were for many years freely interpreted as showing limits of tolerance. He found that the assimilation limit for a given animal was constant, but that from one animal to another there was great variation. His work is also of importance at the present day for his clear recognition of 'hunger diabetes,' a phenomenon which Claude Bernard had encountered in dogs long before and which was, of course, implicit in Muller's work. Seeking a measure of the assimilability of sugars, Linossier and Roque