Why Diabetes is called Diabetes Mellitus?
The word “diabetes” is a Greek which means a siphon. It comes from the term diabainein as named by this Greek physician Aretus the Cappadocian during the second century AD. According to him, patients who suffered from this were passing too much water (polyuria) – like a siphon. It now became “diabetes” from the Medieval Latin diabetes. But the question is why the term mellitus is added. Actually, Thomas Willis did this in 1675, although it is commonly referred to simply as diabetes. The first three letters “mel” means honey in Latin. Therefore, the urine and blood of diabetic people has excess glucose, and glucose is sweet like honey. Now, “diabetes mellitus” could literally mean as “siphoning off sweet water”. In ancient China people observed that ants would be attracted to some people’s urine, because it was sweet. The term “Sweet Urine Disease” was coined.