The Pissing Evil

Abstract The name ‘diabetes’ derives from the ancient Greek word meaning ‘to flow’ or ‘siphon’ and describes one of the most common symptom of diabetes—the passing of large amounts of urine, for which it was given the far more colourful name of ‘The pissing evil’ by seventeenth-century English physician Thomas Willis (1625–1675). First mentioned on an ancient Egyptian papyrus as a disease of sweet urine, it was physicians like Matthew Dobson (1735–1784) and John Rollo who showed it was due to high levels of sugar; both proposed that the condition might therefore be controlled by dietary restriction. In the late nineteenth century, Oskar Minkowski and Josef von Mering demonstrated that the pancreas played a central role in controlling blood sugar levels. This information led French physiologist Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard (1817–1893) to speculate that this might be due to the action of a hormone.