DIABETIC ACIDOSIS

Abstract

Since the introduction of insulin physicians have been apt to feel that diabetic acidosis is a rare and unusual complication of diabetes and that it no longer presents a frequent medical problem. Unfortunately, this is not true. It still is of major importance and, as a careful study of the literature will reveal, still is responsible for a large number of fatalities which in most cases could be avoided if physicians and the laity were conscious of the incidence and the early symptoms. For this reason our paper is for the most part statistical. Among the last 1,865 patients admitted to the metabolic services of one of us (Beardwood) at the Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and at Bryn Mawr, Presbyterian and Abington hospitals, there were 220 with diabetic acidosis. We feel that the term diabetic coma is a poor one, as the coma merely is the terminal