The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-11
STARVATION" AS CURE FOR
 DIABETES

DlABElES
 Following the lead of New York and Boston, where it was successive1y
 developed, physicians in Hartford
 have demonstrated by actual cases that diabetes, a disease hitherto list ed as incurable, is amenable to treat
 ment and, in some eases, at least, is
 curabIe. The treatment used is the
 so-calIed Allen ''starvation'' cure,
 method which depends not at all on
 drugs but primarily on literal starva- ton for a period varying from two
 or three days, in normal eases, to or 10 days in others. The method
 has been tried by a number of Hart ford doctors, who are enthusiastic in thei praise of it and are almost un-' aniInous in saying that it is the only successful treatment for diabetes yet . developed.
 The treatment was worked out by ! pr. Frederick M. Allen of Boston in experiments at the laboratories of the Harvard Medical School and was the result of experiments with animals
 It is the first case, or one of the first cases on record, in which vivisectton has resulted in the discovery of an actual cure for an ''incurabIe" dis ease. pr. Allen started the experi- ments about three years ago. He pro duced the disease experimentally in animals and then attempted to cure them. The basic problem in diabetes cases is to check the excretion of su- i gar and Dr. Allen found that he could stop the excretions by starva-' ton and by following the starvation periods with careful dieting. He published the results of his expert nents in book form and announced that the cure of the disease in hu-
 man beings by his method was "a feasible experimental problem"
 The Rockefeller Institute in New York agreed with pr. Allen in this opinion and gave him an opportunity to test his theory on patients at the Rockefeller Hospital in that city. Ex- actly the same methods were applied at the Rockefeller Hospital, of course, except that patients were used who were already inflicted with the disease. The same results were ob- tained-namely the disease was cur ed.
 The next step in the development of this treatment was taken in the Massa chusetts General Hospital of t Boston, whre the experiments dem onstrated by pr. Allen were repeat ed by pr. Lewis Webb Hill under the direction of Dr. Roger I. Lee, Dr. 1 William H. Smith and pr. Cabot of the hospital staff. The starvation part of the treatment had already been worked out thoroughly by pr. Allen, 1 but the follow up'' treatment of dieting, was not then so thoroughly understood. With laboratory work and test casts in which he was as- sisted by Miss -Rena s. Eckman, die 1 titan of the hospital, pr. Hill work 1 ed out an elaborate system of diets, 1 which covered every phase of the 1 secondary treatment and he publish 1 ed the results of his studies in a sec 1 ond book on the subject. Since then doctors have had full descriptions of 1 every part of the treatment available l by the aid of which they can avoid the dangers of experin entatiOn.
 Little is known even now as to the l cause of diabetes, except that it is l supposed to result from a disorder in the functioning of the pancreas, which furnishes one of the, digestive | fluids. As a result of this disorder | the body fails to make proper use of | the sugar that is supplied to it by va rious carbohydrate foods. Normally | sugar that is so obtained in the body | iE transported by the blood to the various body cells where it is needed. In diabetes, an excess of sugar is formed which, instead of going to the cells where it is needed, is excreted | and wasted. This results in loss of energy and vitality which frequently results in death. In it's extreme sta- ges diabetes ends in one of three ways, in gangrene, generally of the toes, carbunc1es and a condition of the blood which does not allow
  have been removed by operation and acidosis. which sometimes causes a coma that results in death. All three1 types are now considered curable even in the advanced stages, by the Allen treatment
 The starvation treatn mt aims at only one thing, checking the waste of sugar, or as it is sometimes loosely described, driving the sugar out of the system. The theory is that if no food of any kind is supplied to dta- bette patient, no sugar and no mate rial which can become transformed into sugar will be supplied. Under these conditions the body will soon cease to throw off the stored sup plies of sugar. The starvation is gen orally kept up for two or three days, although sometimes for much longer periods. By tests it can be deter mined when the body has ceased to throw off sugar and consequently when it is unnecessary to continue the starvation.
 The body cannot, however, long ex- ist without 8 sugar supply and the sugar to keep it alive without sup plying enough to start the wasting process again. This is done by sup plying at first food which contains very small proportion of carDohy- r drates or sugar-material food. It has also been found that the supply of carbohydrates can be slowly 1n- creased to the point where enough sugar is Supplied so that there is sui fcient vitality for work and comfort and yet not enough sugar to start the wasting process. In other words as long as the dieting is maintained the patient is normal, except that he must be careful to what he eats Digressions from the prescribed diets and other things may cause renew al of the excretfon process, but th1s can be checked again by a repetition