https://dlcs.io/pdf/wellcome/pdf-item/b2106331x/0

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/court-of-last-appeal--the-early-history-of-the-highfat-diet-for-diabetes-2155-6156-1000696.pdf

In Two Cases of the Diabetes Mellitus, Rollo and Cruickshank described the treatment of two patients suوٴering from glycosuria, polyuria and polydipsia with a combination of organic and inorganic salts and a diet restricted in vegetable food, and made largely of meat and fat [1]. Нis was based on the observation that, while both animal foods and vegetable foods are nutritious and will support life, glucose, found in the urine of patients with diabetes and therefore obviously connected to the disease, can be found in large quantities in vegetable foods but only in trace amounts in meat and fat. Нe diet was eوٴective for one of Rollo’s patients, but not the other. Redfearn subsequently published a report of the successful application of Rollo’s method in his own patient [2] and Rollo’s supporter John Latham published many case studies of the diet in his 1811 book Facts and Opinions Concerning Diabetes [3]. Rollo’s method seems to have become widely disseminated; circa 1830 the American adventurer Josiah Harlan, who had taught himself medicine from a popular encyclopaedia, prescribed an animal matter diet to a client in the Punjab, with what results we do not know, according to Ben MacIntyre’s life of Harlan, Нe Man Who Would be King [4]. Нe inconsistent response to the diet seen in Rollo’s first two cases, and in the cases of Latham, can be explained by its high protein content. In the later researches of Woodyatt and others, protein has a glucose value of 58%, due to a high proportion of gluconeogenic amino acids. Hadden gives an analysis of Rollo’s diet for patient 1, Captain Meredith, as supplying 160 g carbohydrate, 136 g protein and 135 g fat [1]. Нus only 50% of the energy from this diet is in the form of the nutrient, fat, which has the lowest requirement for insulin; nor is the diet as low in carbohydrate (from bread and milk, and later, when Captain Meredith returned to Ireland, potatoes) or as permissive with regard to non-starchy vegetables as modern thought would recommend. Captain Meredith lived another 15 years aіer adopting Rollo’s diet, dying in Newfoundland at the age of 49 - according to Hadden, death was probably due to macrovascular complications

Page 90:

"I have now brought the history of Diabetes down to that period when Dr. Rollo first published his celebrated Treatise, a work which ought to be in the hands of every practictioner who is anxious for the fullest information upon the subject.: a work which, like the discovery of sugar in Diabetic Urine, equally marks an important area in this disease: a work which teaches us to cure what Willis taught us only to know, and which will convey his name, with that of his learned predecessor, down with honor to the latest posterity. And let not any thing which may occur in the following pages be construed to detract from that honorable distinction to which he is so justifly entitled; for his observations on the absolute necessity of a pure animal diet will stand the test of experience, when speculations, with respect to medicine in this disease, by every physician who has hitherto existed, (and even those by Dr. Rollo himself) may probably be altogether neglected and forgotten: I must refer the reader to the work itself, which in its more enlarged form is, if possible, rendered much more important by the many communications therein made from a great number of very ingenious correspondents."

Page 100

"so that not only may it exist where little of vegetable nutriment has been taken, and consequently where but little sugar can be produced, but where animal matter has alone been eaten:"

Full Text:

https://archive.org/stream/factsopinionscon00lath/factsopinionscon00lath_djvu.txt

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