Diabetes History 3: The Rise of Insulin

You've returned! Welcome back to the nail-biting conclusion of diabetes history. When I say "history," I'm talking a hundred years ago or more. "History" could also include more recent events, like synthetic insulins, the failed attempt at an insulin nasal spray, and the grotesque price gouging pharmaceutical companies engage in with life-sustaining medicine. But I'm writing about The Dark Times, when a diagnosis of diabetes meant death.

Y'know... the good times! 😁

We've reached the miracle for which all diabetics were waiting. I’m not religious. I have continuously stated that if I could just have the mailing address and phone number of whatever divine being that made the universe, I’d be a lot better with the whole "faith thing." However, not all miracles need be a parting of the seas, a pillar of fire, or the killing of the first born of one’s enemies. Sometimes miracles are a series of unusual twists of fate.

I mentioned the births of Frederick Banting and Charles Best in my last post, but said nothing else about them. That’s because up until this moment in the timeline, there was nothing else to say. Now I need to backtrack a bit to say more about Dr. Banting and his lab assistant. These two men, specifically Dr. Frederick Banting, are what constitute a miracle for me and all diabetics. His life could have, and should have, taken him down a very different path. Instead, there will be several twists along his life’s course that are what I consider miraculous. I'll even enumerate them. Just... don’t let my calling them Fred or Chuck seem irreverent; I have nothing but the greatest respect for these men.

Oh... for you kids out there, your hashtag symbol was once called the pound sign and substituted the word "number."

Twist #1: Once Fred was done with public education, he attempted to join the Canadian army. Thankfully, they rejected him because of his poor eyesight. I’m sure there were plenty of soldiers in the field with corrective lenses, so... I don’t know. Maybe his weren’t stylish enough for the Canadian Army? Your guess is as good as mine.

Twist #2: At the urging of his devout Methodist parents, the then Mr. Banting entered into the University of Toronto to study divinity with the goal of becoming a priest. Luckily for diabetics around the globe, he didn’t hear the calling and transferred out of his religious studies to tackle medicine.

Twist #3: File this one under Just Damned Lucky: Fred Banting joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps because World War I created a need for army medics. He, himself, was wounded at the Battle of Cambrai. Despite his injury, he aided other wounded men for up to 16 hours before another doctor forced him to rest. His actions won him one of the 2,877 Military Crosses that were given for heroism under fire (out of the 150,000 nominations). Considering the lack of medical technology and the less-than-sterile conditions on the battlefield, I consider it “providence” that his wound and lack of care for numerous hours didn’t cripple or kill him.

Twist #4: After the war, Banting, as I understand it, became... something. There seems to be a jumble of information that occurs between 1920 and 1922. One source said he was a surgeon. Another said he was also a lecturer at the University of Western Ontario on the subjects of pharmacology and anthropology. Yet another says he didn’t earn his M.D. until 1922, which leaves me to wonder how he was permitted to practice medicine at all up until then! I dunno... Maybe the requirements to be called "doctor" were a lot less stringent than they are today.

Twist #5: While Banting was either doing one thing or many things during those years, he eventually sat down to read The Relation of the Islets of Langerhans to Diabetes with Special Reference to Cases of Pancreatic Lithiasis by Moses Barron. Not only a title that just rolls off the tongue, but had to be a real page turner! (If you think I was able to read and understand it, you got another think coming.) This medical treatise gave Dr. Banting an idea, so he went to his boss, Dr. J. J. R. Macleod, and requested the resources to pursue it.

Twist #6: Research resources were tight. Macleod said that Fred could have 10 dogs and one assistant. At the time, Banting had two assistants available to him, both medical students. So how did he choose between the two? A coin toss. I’m not even kidding. The winner was Charles Herbert Best.

The dynamic duo of Banting and Best went to work, and while I could go into details of that work, I won’t. It’s the animal lover in me that makes me refrain from discussing what was done to those 10 dogs, some of the best boys and girls ever! Besides, what matters are the results. They were able to extract insulin from the islets of Langerhans of the dogs’ pancreases. Their extract was then refined by Dr. James Collip.

On 23 January 1922, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson became the very first diabetic to receive a dose of insulin. Thanks to the starvation diet, Leonard weighed all of 66 pounds at the time. From then on, diabetes would no longer be a death sentence. Instead, it would be a disease that could either be merely troublesome or extremely serious... but very few people would ever die from diabetes again. In fact, Mr. Thompson died 13 years later from pneumonia, not diabetes!

That sounds weird, right? “Very few people would ever die from diabetes again.” It’s true, and I’ll try to explain it later, but people rarely die directly from diabetes!

Our hero, Dr. Frederick Banting,

seen here wearing the glasses that

kept him out of the Canadian Army.

In October of 1923, Banting and Macleod received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Banting initially declined the award, feeling that Charles Best should have been named as well in the achievement. In fact, he insisted that Best’s work was pivotal to their overall accomplishments. In the end, Banting shared the monetary award with Best, while Macleod shared his award with Collip.

Dr. Banting was knighted in 1934, becoming Sir Fredrick Banting. Or was it Sir Dr. Frederick Banting? Dr. Sir Frederick Banting? Dr. Frederick Sir Banting? One of those, I'm sure.

He was killed in a plane crash on February 21, 1941.

The fates and fortunes of the other doctors are yours to research if you'd like. Fred was the idea man who got the ball rolling on finding a medication to treat diabetes. We are alive today because of him! That's not hyperbole. It's a fact.

And so we come to the end of our journey through the annals of diabetes history. Join me for my next post, where I explore why diabetics were forced to wear roller skates and listen to disco throughout the 70's.

They weren't. I'm just in a weird mood as I type this. 😉