Diabetes

Medical terms are weird. I assumed that they were always derived from the name of the causal micro-organism (Diabeticus Bacillus?) or the guy who found/cured the condition first (Dr. Droho Diabeticone?). You'll be glad to know that no one of that name ever existed. Instead, 'Diabetes' was coined by a Aretaeus (okaay....), a physician living in Alexandria.

The word itself is Greek and stems from 'diabeinien', which means a siphon, to pass through or go. And by go, they mean the kind of go you need to do when you cross your legs and writhe and people roll their eyes at you. I'll say it- urinate. Actually, in classical Greek, the word apparently means to stand with legs apart which, when you imagine it, isn't quite so classy after all...

I did some more digging and was amazed to understand the correlation between the word for urinating and the disease itself. It led me to a site about the Irulas, an aboriginal Indian tribe. This is what was documented-

"Irulas have an ancient diagnostic system that utilizes their natural surroundings; to determine whether someone has 'Chakari noie' (diabetes) the person is asked to urinate on the ground to see if ants are attracted to the abnormally high sugar concentration in their urine."


Brilliant! I cannot imagine a Greek in white robes diagnonizing it quite like that but I guess the same idea played out.

So, there you go. Diabetes deconstructed. At least the word.