DIABETES. 193 DIACRITICAL MARK. drugs are used, with varying suecess, including bromides and salicylates, opium, and digcstants. Eecovcry is very rare. Temporary fflycosuria, or sugar in the urine, occurs in some people after the use of chloral or the administration of au anipsthetic. Some always have a little sugar in the urine without having any other sjniptom of dii^betes, especially gouty or very fat peojjle. Diabetes is not, as is popularly sup- posed, a disease of the kidneys. There are no pathological changes which are recognized as characteristic of this disease. In some cases lesions of the medulla oblongata have been described, but the recently advanced theory of a distinct 'diabetic centre' in the medulla seems as yet to lack sullicient confirmation. Probably the most constant lesions are those found in the pancreas as noted by Lancereaux. The most common change is a simple atrophy of the pancreatic tissue, with or without an in- crease in the interstitial connective tissue. Dr. V. T. Bull, of Xew York, has reported a case in which diabetes followed removal of the pan- creas, and the results of experimental extirpation of the organ lend weight to its possible impor- tance as the causative factor in diabetes. It must, however, be borne in mind that lesions similar to those described may be found in patients who have given no symptoms of diabetes. See Diet. DIABET'IC SUGAR. A substance found in the blood and secretions of the higher animals, especially when afflicted with the disease called diabetes (q.v.). It is largely liver-sugar, closely resembling glucose; partly inosit. See Glucose; IXOSIT. DIABLE BOITEUX, de-alil' bwii'te', Le ( Fr., the lame devil). A famous satirical romance in dialogue form, by Le Sage (1707). It deals with the wonders wrought by a sjiirit. Asmodeus, whom Don Cleofas has accidentally released from imprisonment in a glass jar, and is chiefly de- rived from El diahlo cojtirlo, a Spanish work bv de (Juevara ( 1041 ). The satire furnished the basis for Focitc's enmedv The Devil Vpon 'J'ao Sticks. DIABLERETS, de'a'bl'-ra' (Fr., little devils). A group of peaks in the western Bernese Alps, Switzerland, situated about 15 miles southeast of Lake Geneva, in the bend of the Rhone, in lati- tude 46° 20' X. (ilap: Switzerland. B 2). They range from 000 to over 10.500 feet high, and are covered with glaciers on the north and east sloi)es. Owing to their strata of limestone, sand- stone, and gA-psum, the Diableret.s are gradually being undermined, and their mountain masses .fall from time to time with destructive eflfect. DIACHYLON, di-akl-lon (Gk. diaxv?j>c, diachylos, ven^ juicy, from Sia, dia, through + Xv/.o;, chi/lrjs. juice. A deceptive etymology, as may be seen from the composition of the plaster) . The common healing or adhesive plaster, made by combining litharge, or the red oxide of lead, with olive oil. so as to form a kind of soap. Dinchijlon ointment contains 500 parts of dia- chylon plaster, 490 parts of olive oil, and 10 part~ of oil of lavender-flowers. DIACRITICAL MARK or SIGN, or DIA- CRITIC fOk. <i/o/<p'TiKrif, diakrilikos. ilistinc- tive. from iiaKp'ntiv, diakrinein. to distinguish, from Sia, dia, through + Kphetv, krincin, to judge). A mark or sign used to distinguish dif- ferent sounds or values of the same letter <5r cliaracter, such as those used in indicating the l)ronunciation or accent in this KncyclojKedia. Such marks or signs may arise, (a) as a degra- dation or gradual corruption of some combina- tion of previously used characters as in the case of the German umlauted vowels, a, ii, ii ; or (b) they may be deliberately invented or chosen for some special purpose, as in most of the systems used for phonetic respelliiig in works of* refer- ence or in philological works. Some of those in the first class were developed by writing one letter above, as a means of saving time or space, especially at the end of a line, when books were made by copying by hand. Tlius the German jl, o, ii were originally ii, 6, ti, and the superior letters were, for convenience sake, re- duced to two dots. So the Swedish a or A was originally ao or Ao, written with the o over the a or A, this o being finally changed into a simple circle. The cedilla (litei"ally, little zed or z), on the other hand, is a degradation of a variant form (J or ) of the letter z, which was formerly written after the letter c to show that it was to be pronounced like s, when without the cedilla it would have had the sound of k. It is now chiefly used in F'reneh and Portuguese words. The number of these diacritical marks resulting from degraded forms now or formerly employed in the various civilized languages is very- large; but most of those now in use have either lost their primitive meaning or are of forgotten origin. To the class of arbitrarily in- vented or chosen diacritical marks belong most of those now in use in the alphabets of the civil- ized nations or races, such as those used in pho- netic respelling and those used in the ordinary alphabets of many European nations whose alphabets have become fixed during comparative- ly recent times, as in the various Slavic alpha- bets, the Hungarian alphabet, etc. The points used in the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets, as well as those used in Avestan, are arbitrary in- ventions used to indicate the vowels or modifica- tions of the consonantal sounds of the original characters. The diacritical marks which occur in the print- ing of common English words are the diieresis [••], the hyphen [-], the cedilla [c], the acute accent ['], the grave accent [■•], and the tilde [-]. By some authors the letter h when written after c or s or t is treated as a simple diacritic, al- though it is not properly a diacritical mark. The dia-resis is a suiwival of the Greek use of two dots over c or v to show that they did not form a diphthong with the preceding vowel. It is used in the same way in English. The tilde is used in English only over foreign-derived words, as in the word canon. It is«a degradation or cor- ruption of the letter n, which was formerly in- dicated in many words by making the sign — , or even a straight mark [ - 1 over the preceding letter, as ano := anno. When final -ed is to be pronounced contrary to the usual rule, the fact is usually indicated by tising the grave or acute accent, thus reachdd, and in the same way the fact that a final e is to be pronounced is often indicated; thus, lirnnte. The hyphen sometimes serves the purpose of the dia>resis. as in re-rnlrii. Some of the characters used in phonetic respell- ing have by long usage become more or less fixed in significance: thus the signs —and >- are practi- cally always used to denote long and short sounds
