19th Century Death Sentence--Diabetes PLUS GIVEAWAY!!

Diabetes~ It touches everyone these days, if not a family member than you know someone who has been affected by the disease.

Did you ever wonder if this is a 20th plus century problem or older? My family has seen the devastation of diabetes, as type 1 runs in the family. I decided to do some research into this growing disease and found it so interesting I thought I'd share it with you.

Diabetes dates back to early Egypt well before 1000 BC. It wasn't referred to as diabetes but as 'the passing of too much urine'. Historians believe the two are one in the same. Unlike today, it was also considered a rare disease. By 50 AD a Greek physician named Aretaeus speaks of the 'the passing of too much urine' and coins the name that we know it as today, diabetes, giving it a clinical name.

Jump forward to the nineteenth century when we know diabetes was treated with blood letting or opium to help the sufferer deal with the pain associated with dying from diabetes. Moving ahead another century, the disease brought research. Diabetes was no longer a rare disease, and often afflicted children. The children lay in comas dying in wards of fifty or more patients while the parents mourned for them, waiting for their imminent deaths.

Frederick M. Allen, a physician, discovered that the disease was a metabolic disorder and much more than just high blood glucose levels. Because of this discovery, he developed a low carbohydrate diet which was referred to as the starvation diet.

Parents, by putting their children on this starvation diet, were able to gain up to another year with their child before they succumbed to the life stealing disease. Adults were able to survive closer to two years on the diet.

While Allen's diet treatment didn't cure, it did give patients a chance of controlling their disease though bringing them to the brink of starvation in the process.

                                               Picture of Allen  By unknown - Original publication: unknownImmediate source: http://www.breakthroughthebook.com/aainsberg-gallery.htm, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38926099

Left, child on starvation diet, right, on insulin

Left, on starvation diet, right, on insulin

1. https://bantinghousenhsc.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/teddy-ryder.jpg?w=547

And research continue. Frederick Banting, Charles Best, J.B. Collip and their supervisor, J.J. R. Macleod were hard at work in 1921 looking for a way to save diabetic sufferers. Banting had an idea how to extract the serum that the pancreas excreted. He brought it to Macleod who became his supervisor and thought it hopeful starting the new research project. Banting brought on Best as his assistant. 

A year later after many trials and many errors an insulin injection was believed to be discovered and given to 14 year old Leonard Thompson who lay dying in a Toronto hospital from the disease. Due to the impurities in the insulin he had a severe allergic reaction and further injections had to be halted. The men worked on relentlessly trying to remove the toxins from the serum. J.B. Collip was able to purify the insulin on January 23, 1922, removing the toxins, and once again they gave it to a 14 year old boy. This time getting a positive result and saving the boys life.

An emotional moment came for the wards that housed the fifty plus children in comas and dying from diabetes. Banting, Best, and Collip went from one bed to the next and injected each child in the ward with the insulin that had been successful on the Thompson boy. Before they had reached the last of they dying children the first they'd given shots to were coming out of their comas and waking up, to their parent's astonishment and joy.

This lifesaving discovery was up for a Noble Prize. It caused much dissention between the men when Banting and Macleod were given the award. Banting insisted his partner Best deserved to have won instead of Macleod and split his winning money with his partner. Macleod split his with Collip. In the end, Banting and Best were the ones remembered for their research while Macleod and Collip seemed to be forgotten. 

I didn't realize how close my aunt had come to be one of those children in a ward, born only 15 years after the discovery of insulin. At eleven years old her teacher realized something was wrong when she was sleeping through class. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and went on insulin. Since then many of my family members have been diagnosed with the disease. 

What about you? Do you know anyone who has benefited from Banting, Best, Collip, and Macleod's hard work? Had you ever thought about when diabetes became a health issue? Do you think you would have put your child on the starvation diet, knowing it was painful but also knowing it would give you another year with them?

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 Debbie Lynne Costello is the author of Sword of Forgiveness, Amazon's #1 seller for Historical Christian Romance. She has enjoyed writing stories since she was eight years old. She raised her family and then embarked on her own career of writing the stories that had been begging to be told. She and her husband have four children and live in upstate South Carolina with their 5 horses, 3 dogs, cat and miniature donkey.

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