[xMenace]

After 31 some years I finally looked it up in a dictionary:

Diabetes is named for one of its distressing symptoms. The disease was known to the Greeks as diabētēs, a word derived from the verb diabainein, made up of the prefix dia-, "across, apart," and the word bainein, "to walk, stand." The verb diabeinein meant "to stride, walk, or stand with legs asunder"; hence, its derivative diabētēs meant "one that straddles," or specifically "a compass, siphon." The sense "siphon" gave rise to the use of diabētēs as the name for a disease involving the discharge of excessive amounts of urine. Diabetes is first recorded in English, in the form diabete, in a medical text written around 1425.

[LancetChick]

Don't forget "mellitus" derived from the Greek(?) word for honey, and those brave Greek physicians who would diagnose diabetes by drinking their patients' urine.

[nneighbour]

In some culture(s) they just watched to see if ants were attracted to the sweet urine (India, I believe). If I were a doctor, I'd much prefer to perform the ant test to the taste test.

Bottoms up!