The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-08-31
QUEER EFFECTS OF SHORTAGE IN BLOOD SUGAR

A man aged AZ years began to have spells of blurred vision or double vision along toward seemed quite dazed and behaved oddly. When he had these spells he would do things auto
 matically and afterward have no memory of having done them Such conduct on the part l of man in almost any field soon puts him on Queer Street. In this instance physician | studied the case and decided that the man had | hysteria.
 Oh, we'll we doctors all make mistakes Sometimes operate on them Sometimes we just bury them quietly. The spells of "hysteria gradually grew worse On several occasions the | man lost consciousness completely for an hour | or two
 Then physician with newfangled ideas took | it into his head to give the man blood sugar | test while he was in one of the spells This l showed that. the poor fellows blood sugar was way down to 20 m.g., whereas the normal is
 around 12o m.g: Cif you don't understand the | erals). Doctors call such Q low blood sugar level "hypoglycemia," and it spells either grave | starvation, complete exhaustion from prolonged
 or unaccustomed muscular work, or just an ex- | cessive secretion of insulin in the pancreas. In
 this case it was simple to rule out starvation | and overexertion. So then they operated. Might | as well go in and see what you find, as long as | the patient is right there in the clinic where
 you can have a scalpel into him in two jerks of a lambs tail. Chances are he will be rather | pleased at the prospect of having an opera
 tion. It will make great story for him to
 tell the folks back home. story he recite | for years, with variations to meet the circum- stances.
 l The exploration of this mans interior cor
 roborated the diagnosis of hypoglycemia or hy- perinsulnsm. The pancreas was found to be only one-half the size of normal pancreas | Abdominal sweet bread) and it showed evil
 dence of chronic inflammation. No part of the | gland was removed but the capsule was l stripped The patients blood sugar rose in lev | el the day of the operation and remained | slightly below normal hereafter. He was ad- vised to take food regularly between meals and | also in the night and on that regimen he has had little further trouble and has kept at his
 regular work, out he is gaining weight on the extra nutrimcnt he has to consume to keep his blood sugar level from falling low elough to bring on the spells
 There are great many persons who suffer | peculiar spells of weakness, confusion stupor | or restessncss several hours after a meal. If | they do not happen to partake of some food
 fra4t juice, milk. candy any carbohydrate | tstarcn or sugar). They are likely to have sim l liar distress in the wee sma' hours unless they | have something handy to take in the night
 ideally little orange. Queer spells occurring about a. m have probably been misinterpret- ed Tn a great many cases, as apoplectic and the l like, or even as epileptic. when in fact they
 some carbohydrate food for quick relief. l QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ~ l Rubber SOles
 Have received great deal of good from reading your column these many years NJ,
 dentist admits you arc right about brushing the tecul. One thing you say would note aI
 exception to- You say crepe or composition rub.
 bcr solcs are IS heaithful as any others have
 found tnat II l wear them when 1t is warn l enouRh to cause feet to perspire much thcy cause my feet to scald and cracks form betwces
 tocs Leather soles will not do this. tls. w. M.)
 Answer-Perhaps other readers with experi ence will confirm or deny your Observation Where excessive sweating of the feet is trou blesome. an excellent remedy is to pour ta biespoonful of diluted formaldehyde solutio, into the shoe so as to wet the whole insole an. the lining. then drain 1t out into the next shoe
 and let the shoes dry out A hours before put ting them on again. Such treatment about ono . month will control the trouble and preven
 odor For this purpose mix the standard For
 maidehyde solution with water, one part t three or four k
 tccpyrixht 1sss. John F. bile col