Diabetes, a very hard disease that until 1922 had no cure.Unfortunately it was a deadly disease.
But what happened in 1922?
Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old man, was the first person to receive insulin.
He was a normal kid who loved sports but after only 11 years of life he was diagnosed with diabetes.
Frederick Banting, a young surgeon, woke up in the middle of the night and drew on a sheet his idea of how to treat diabetes.
Leonard's parents, the 14-year-old child, agreed that Frederick Banting can test insulin on a him and he became the first person to be tested with insulin.
The first injection of insulin did not work but he received more that eventually gave results and the boy felt better.
It was an amazing discovery for everyone knowing that from now on, those people with diabetes can be saved.
For Banting, the key was to isolate a pure version of the pancreas extract that could be used to treat diabetes. His discovery was the hypothesis that another substance produced in the pancreas, trypsin, breaks down insulin before it can be extracted.
Then Banting and his assistant, Charles Best contacted Professor John Macleod, a professor of physiology and agreed to do tests on dogs,to make sure that the dogs stops producing trypsin because the trypsin was breaking down insulin.
They then purified insulin to be ready for use and saved the first diabetic Patient.
In 1923 received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
In October 1923 insulin was allowed for sale.
Photo - Frederick Banting and Charles Best
Source - picryl.com
Unfortunately, today hundreds of millions of people struggle with diabetes due to obesity and messy lifestyle.
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