Diabetes has been around a long time. First documented in an Egyptian papyrus around 1550BC, the condition was described as “too great emptying of the urine”1. In around 30–90 AD the Greek Physician Artaeus noted symptoms such as constant thirst, excessive urination and loss of weight, and coined the name diabetes – “to pass through”2. Some years later (131-201AD), Artaeus’s Roman counterpart Galen recorded the rarity of the condition and hypothesized a link to renal dysfunction.
