Historical background: Earlier studies on the connexion between viruses and diabetes

Abstract

Although there are references to possible relationships between mumps and diabetes in the mid-nineteenth century (Stang 1861), it was not until much later that Harris (1899), described in detail a likely association between the two diseases. In the case discussed by Harris, glycosuria in a young American farmer quickly followed the initial mumps attack, but full blown diabetes with ketosis developed over a 3-year period. It was assumed that the mumps produced pancreatitis which involved the islets. In the ensuing 30 years, sporadic cases where there was an association between mumps and diabetes were reported (Patrick 1924), but it was generally assumed that mumps was a rare cause of diabetes. Gundersen (1927), however, published a paper with the intriguing title Is Diabetes of Infectious Origin?, in which it was suggested that what he termed infectious parotitis or mumps produced pancreatic disease leading to diabetes in the young some 3 years after the initial infection. His figures were based on death rates due to diabetes in Norway in the pre-insulin period. At that time diabetes in the young with ketosis was usually fatal, and death rates from the disease bore a relationship to its incidence.