page_title: History of diabetes
section_title: Ancient China
hierarchical_section_title: History of diabetes / Early accounts / Ancient China
caption_attribution_description: Ink drawing from a MS of the Qing period (1644-1911). The artist sets out to give visual expression to the doctrine, fromHuangdi neijing (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor), that 'there are two heart nexuses (xinxi)'.Lingmen chuanshou tongren zhixue(The Lofty Portal Teaching Manual of Acupoints on the Bronze Figurine) states: There are two heart nexuses: one ascends to connect with the lungs; the other passes from the heart into one of the two large lobes of the lungs, curls round to the back where it links with the fine network of the spine, passes through the spinal marrow (jisui, spinal cord), and connects with the kidney nexus (shenxi). This is one of the ancient doctrines of the heart nexus. Wellcome Images Keywords: Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Qing period (1644-1911)
context_page_description: The condition known today as diabetes is thought to have been described in the Ebers Papyrus. Ayurvedic physicians first noted the sweet taste of diabetic urine, and called the condition madhumeha. The term "diabetes" traces back to Demetrius of Apamea. For a long time, the condition was described and treated in traditional Chinese medicine as xiāo kě. Physicians of the medieval Islamic world, including Avicenna, have also written on diabetes. Early accounts often referred to diabetes as a disease of the kidneys. In 1674, Thomas Willis suggested that diabetes may be a disease of the blood. Johann Peter Frank is credited with distinguishing diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus in 1794.
  In regard to diabetes mellitus, Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski are commonly credited with the formal discovery of a role for the pancreas in causing the condition. In 1893, Édouard Laguesse suggested that the islet cells of the pancreas, described as "little heaps of cells" by Paul Langerhans in 1869, might play a regulatory role in digestion. These cells were named Islets of Langerhans after the original discoverer.
context_section_description: Modern-day diabetes is associated with two terms in the Chinese language. The traditional term, xiāo kě (消渴), means "wasting-thirst" and correlates closely with diabetes in most instances of historical description. The more modern term, táng niǎo bìng (糖尿病), means "sugar urine disease", and is equivalent to diabetes mellitus. It has been suggested that the modern term is derived from exchanges with Ayurvedic practitioners who called the condition madhumeha ("honey urine"). Within the Sinosphere (regions of East and Southeast Asia historically influenced by the linguistic and literary traditions of the Chinese empire), this etymology has also been borrowed into Korean (tang nyo byeong [당뇨병]) and Japanese (tou nyo byou [とうにょうびょう]).
  Reviews of diabetology history in Traditional Chinese medicine have classified the diagnosis and treatment of xiāo kě (消渴) into four periods, summarized below. Classic texts provided a typology of the condition and outlined various recommendations on diagnosis, development, treatment, and prevention. Knowledge of wasting-thirst was integrated with knowledge of diabetes during the Qing dynasty.
caption: A Qing-era drawing of the lungs and heart nexus. Illustrates the Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine)
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