LUND. SWEDEN
5
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Professor Karl Petren. and discussion on diabetes.
As Professor Petrin is extremely interested in diabetes, it was only
natural that on many occasions problems in diabetes should have been discussed.
Thus, at a dinner at his summer home just before we left, there was considerable
discussion on this subject, in which Dr. W. M. Boothby (who was there as a
guest) participated. The discussion centered about Professor Petre'n's low
figure for nitrogen per day. Dr. Boothby continually referred to a value of
0.9 gm., but we looked up Professor Petren»s book and could not find such a low
value. On the other hand, Professor Petren says that he has really secured
lower values now than was shown in his large book. He objected strongly to
the use of any individual nitrogen figure for any: day, and said that Friedrich
Müller told him that when an assistant brought him figures showing a uniform
nitrogen output per day, he always told him the figures were false. On the
other hand, Boothby thought that one could get such figures from day to day.
In discussing the experiences of Newburgh, Petren said that although Newburgh
undoubtedly worked wholly independent of him, he (Petren) was years ahead of
Newburgh. At Dr. Joslin’s request I asked him about the incidence of arterio¬
sclerosis, but he stated that perhaps, as his patients lived longer on a low
protein, high-fat diet, he had seen it oftener, but he did not see it in young
people and there was no hint of an early onset of it. He thought that the
diabetic would get to a lower nitrogen intake balance than normal, and I sugges¬
ted that before they came to this level they were undernourished and this
means that they had already lost a lot of nitrogen.
Professor Petren was very enthusiastic about Dr. Joslin. He said that he
reminded him of his own professor, and he considered that he had the ideal gift
of a teacher. He also told me that Naunyn died of heart rupture, but on
autopsy he was found to have cancer of the prostate, although he had had no
symptoms, and so he had an ideal death.