Endocrine Abstracts

Mattew Dobson (1735–1784) was a Liverpool physician who was recognised with FRS for his numerous and varied publications. He investigated a patient with diabetes, which at the time was considered to be a kidney disorder, associated with excessive sweet tasting urine. His experiments showed that the sweet urine, on evaporation, contained white granular material indistinguishable from sugar. However, he also made the crucial observation that the blood serum was also sweet to taste. He concluded that the emaciation in diabetes was due to ‘a large proportion of the alimentary matter being drawn off by the kidney before assimilation‘.

This revolutionary discovery sent diabetes research in the correct direction studying the mechanisms by which the body deals with carbohydrate foods and appropriate treatments followed. It was published in 1776 in Medical Observations and Enquiries… a journal published by a group of physicians who met alternate monday evenings in the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street, London. At the time another revolution was taking place across ‘The Pond’!