Diagnosed With Diabetes and/or Died From Complications of Diabetes - Civil War Generals etc.

lelliott19

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What do these Civil War personalities have in common?
  • Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest
  • Union Major General Fitz John Porter
  • Union Major General Winfield Scott Hancock
  • Union Colonel /Brvt Brig Gen Ely Samuel Parker served as Grant's Adjutant and wrote the final draft of the surrender terms at Appomattox Court House
  • Confederate Lieutenant General Stephen Dill Lee
  • Formerly enslaved, pilot of the Planter, and South Carolina Representative Robert Smalls
  • Confederate Major General Robert Frederick Hoke
  • Union Major General Gouverneur Kemble Warren
  • Colonel, 47th New York Infantry James Leslie Fraser
All of these men were diagnosed with and/or died from complications of diabetes mellitus - of the type we commonly know today as "Type II diabetes." Diabetes mellitus is a medical condition in which the blood glucose levels are abnormally elevated because the body does not produce enough insulin to meet its needs.

How do we know that these men did not die from Type I diabetes? In Type I diabetes, the body produces little or no insulin. In the 1860's most patients who had Type I diabetes died. The rapid onset of symptoms, along with lack of effective treatment to lower blood glucose levels almost always resulted in diabetic ketoacidosis, loss of consciousness, coma, and death.

Type II diabetes usually manifests in adulthood and production of insulin gradually decreases and/or the body becomes insulin resistant over time. An elevated blood glucose level over prolonged periods can result in delayed wound healing, kidney, heart, and eye damage, and even a stroke.

At the time of the Civil War, medical professionals did not understand the insulin producing function of the pancreas or the important function insulin had. In fact, it would be SIXTY years later, in 1921, when insulin was "discovered" and purified. Injectable insulin was used for the first time to treat diabetes mellitus in 1922. By then, most of the men who had been participants in the Civil War were dead.

Please post other Civil War personalities who were diagnosed with diabetes and/or who died of complications of diabetes.
 
I might add just a small note - read somewhere of the theory that the drastic change of diet while in the military was a suspected cause of diabetes developing in officers and soldiers. Have you seen anything about that? In Forrest's case, diabetes symptoms began to show about the last two years of the war, when food supplies were not very good for either officers or soldiers in the Confederate army.

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Missed Ely on your list! Sorry. What started the disease with him was his falling into heavy drinking later in life.
 
How were they diagnosed? I know earliest way was to ‘taste’ the urine of someone suspected of having diabetes. It was sweet due to sugar spilling into urine confirming diagnosis. Not sure when they developed a test for it.
 
Was it called diabetes? I'm just asking because I run into deaths from ' Bright's disease '- is that something else?

Was there any treatment at all for diabetes 150 years ago or was it considered hopeless?
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanied by high blood pressure and heart disease. (Wikipedia)
It is similar in its progression and symptoms to diabetes, but not the same thing.
 
Was it called diabetes? I'm just asking because I run into deaths from ' Bright's disease '- is that something else?

Was there any treatment at all for diabetes 150 years ago or was it considered hopeless?

Yes, it was called diabetes back then. Actually, the full name is diabetes mellitus. Mellitus is derived from Latin meaning honeyed or sweet. Again, a reference to the sweet ‘taste’ that occurred from sugar spilling into the urine.

No treatment was available till about 1920 when injectable insulin was developed.

Back then type 1 would be considered more hopeless as onset was at a younger age and most people would have died. Type 2 develops in adulthood and typically takes many years of uncontrolled blood sugar for serious complications to be seen. Given shorter life expectancy back then I’d suspect a decent number of people died due to something else.

Bright’s disease is a term no longer used and refers to kidney disease. There are many causes of kidney disease one of the more common ones being diabetes. In diabetic kidney disease people can get swelling, and this was a symptom of Bright’s disease. Advanced diabetic kidney disease could lead to kidney failure. That form of advanced Bright’s disease would not have been treatable as kidney dialysis wasn’t developed till 1940s.
 
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Great info here I had no idea Forrest died of type 2
 
Great info here I had no idea Forrest died of type 2

The cause of death was listed as 'chronic diarrhea' - diabetes was only suspected. Later, studies of Forrest's symptoms made it increasingly clear it was diabetes 2, the diarrhea likely caused by nerve damage to the stomach and intestines. Also he had great difficulty walking, another indication of peripheral neuropathy. Forrest also exhibited symptoms during the last part of the war - fainting spells, for instance - and after the war he developed an 'unnatural' sweet tooth that worried his wife. She definitely suspected diabetes as she would prepare a different meal for her husband than what everyone else was eating. There were quite a few doctors of that time who did link the disease to diet, and they would also recommend health baths - the Forrests were always visiting one. Mary Ann actually made the correct diagnosis!
 
drastic change of diet while in the military was a suspected cause of diabetes developing in officers and soldiers. Have you seen anything about that?
Thanks for your reply. Indeed, the change of diet was definitely contributory, but it was more than that I think. The armies relied heavily on those foods that could be easily stored and transported. Soldiers subsisted mostly on hardtack and cornmeal with very little meat or vegetables. Refining grains removes main ingredients of the grain - leaving behind a substance that is nearly 100% starch and very little protein. Corn refining began about the time of the CW when cornstarch was developed. Then, in 1866, scientists discovered that cornstarch could be converted to glucose and so the pathway to high fructose corn syrup was born. The increased reliance on refined grains and carbohydrates seems to have contributed to the number of people who developed diabetes in the US during and after the Civil War.
How were they diagnosed?
There were several reagents that could be used for detecting sugar in the urine. This simple method using tincture of iodine, promoted in 1864, must have been an important discovery since tincture of iodine was more readily available than special reagents that had to be specially compounded.
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The American Medical Times, Being a Weekly Series of the New York Journal of Medicine. Volumes 8-9, Baillière Brothers, 1864, page 118. LINK
acute or chronic nephritis.
Good question NL. I think its certainly possible that some of those who died of "Bright's Disease" or chronic nephritis may have actually died from complications of diabetes - they just didn't connect it at the time. Untreated diabetes or inadequately treated diabetes results in small sugar crystals passing into the blood and into the kidneys. These tiny crystals damage capillaries - in the extremities, this can eventually result in scar tissue that reduces blood flow. Reduced blood flow results in delayed healing of wounds, numbness, and neuropathy. In the kidneys, imagine tiny shards (sugar crystals) bumping into and cutting the tiny passages in the kidneys. Over time, this is going to create damage, scar tissue, etc. and eventually impact kidney function. So "Bright's Disease" could easily have resulted from diabetes.
 
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That method in, 'New Test For Diabetic Sugar' could not have been a defining statement, since at the end it was found to have the same affect on healthy subjects. The article ended with the results no more than conjectural. Is there another source for a definitive answer from that era, @lelliott19? Thanks,
Lubliner.
 
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