Renal glycosuria has been recognized for many years but still is mistreated frequently as diabetes mellitus. This unfortunate situation is probably due to a lack of knowledge of this abnormality. In 1939, Marble and co-workers1 set up rigid criteria for diagnosis of renal glycosuria, stating that the patients must have glycosuria at all times. More recently, Fox2 defined renal glycosuria as a situation in which an "individual... has a normal curve, but who has had glycosuria at some time during the glucose tolerance test."
The hereditary aspect of glycosuria has been reported on by several authors (Hjärne,3 Babson,4 and Bowcock5). The family reported on below also illustrates this point.
Report of Four Cases in One Family
Case 1.—
A woman was 34 years old when first seen at the Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital in 1946, at term with her sixth child. The record is