By Tim Sanders

Today, we celebrate the birthday of a Canadian who has enriched mankind immeasurably. No, I’m not talking about Celine Dion. I’m talking about Dr. Frederick G. Banting, who was born on November 14, 1891. November is National Diabetes Month, and Dr. Banting is the researcher who first used insulin to treat diabetes. I’ve been diabetic for 47 years, and I know we diabetics who are still above ground owe Dr. Banting a great deal. Contrary to popular belief, Canada has given us much more than toothless hockey players and Canadian bacon.

Here are a few high points in the history of diabetes research:
 

1. Around 1552 BC, Egyptian physician Hesy-Ra, M.D., D.D., PhD., provided the earliest written record of diabetes when he described frequent urination as a symptom of a certain disorder. Of course, he may have been describing intoxication, or prostate problems, or simply a weak bladder, but we are almost certain that the date was correct, because even if he had no earthly idea what BC meant, that is what a panel of Egyptologists agreed that the hieroglyphs scribbled on his papyrus prescription scroll said.

2. In 250 BC the name "diabetes" was first used by Apollonius of Memphis, who should not be confused with Apollonius of Nashville. "Diabetes" was a Greek word which meant "to go through," and for centuries historians thought it was simply a reference to the Roman aqueducts. Later it was determined that the word described a disease which siphons more fluid through the body than it can consume.

3. Through the 11th Century AD, not much progress was made, diabetes-wise. In those days, physicians actually employed "water tasters" who helped diagnose diabetics by drinking their urine to see if it was sweet. There was an exceptionally high turnover rate in the "water taster" profession. Due to this, however, the Latin term "mellitus," which means "PTOOOIE," was added to the word "diabetes."

4. In 1798, British surgeon John Rollo documented excess sugar in the blood of diabetics. He accomplished this with the help of 17 London lawyers who were experts at extracting blood. Rollo later said he would have hired more, but he couldn’t afford their hourly rates.

5. In the late 1850s, a French physician named Priorry advised diabetics to eat extra large quantities of sugar to treat their disease. This treatment, much like his suggestion that the common migraine headache could be cured with "one-dozen well-placed blows from ze, how-you-say, claw hammer," was debunked by the world scientific community. Nonetheless, the French medical establishment considered Priorry a hero, because he was ... French.

6. In 1860 a German medical student named Langerhans discovered an odd-looking group of cells in the pancreas, and stated unequivocally that he had no idea what they were there for. To honor this astounding admission, the cells were later called "Islets of Langerhans."

7. In 1869 Minkowski and von Mering, two researchers at the University of Strasbourg, removed various parts from a dog, just out of curiosity. They discovered that when they removed the dog’s leg, he developed a limp, when they removed his teeth, he developed a taste for strained kibble, and when they finally removed his pancreas–and this is their most astonishing discovery–he developed an intense dislike for Minkowski and von Mering. He also developed diabetes.

8. In the early 1900s, a variety of treatments for diabetes, including the popular beefsteak and whiskey treatment, the less popular coffee and oatmeal enema treatment, and the old padlock on the icebox treatment, all failed. Finally, in 1921 Dr. Frederick Banting and his associates at the University of Toronto put all of the information compiled over the past several decades together, extracted insulin from the Islets of Langerhans in a calf’s pancreas, and successfully treated a dog whose pancreas had been removed in an unfortunate neutering accident. At long last, after centuries of research, experimentation, high expectations and dashed hopes, there was a workable treatment for diabetic dogs.

9. In 1922 a 14-year-old human diabetic named Leonard Thompson was treated successfully with insulin injections by Banting’s associates in Toronto. Later that year the philanthropic Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Corporation purchased the rights to mass produce insulin purely for the good of mankind, with no anticipation of any profit whatsoever. HAHA. In 1923 Banting and another Toronto diabetes researcher, John J. R. Macleod, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

10. In 1924, the danger posed by too much insulin in the system was illustrated by Swedish Dr. Sven Noordhaus, who injected himself with beef insulin and then climbed onto his roof to replace some shingles. After a few minutes, all the sugar left his brain, and he launched himself into the air, believing he was a great horned owl. Dr. Noordhaus swooped unceremoniously into a rosebush, where he was found by his wife. He was wrestled into a cage by neighbors, given orange juice, and recovered from his injuries, but he lived the rest of his life in fear of heights and field mice. A few months later a crude form of instant glucose was developed to help ward off such severe insulin reactions.

11. Over the next several decades, insulin was further refined, diabetes was divided according to insulin sensitivity into Type 1 and Type 2, and much was learned about the long-term complications from diabetes, such as eye disease, kidney disease, heart disease, nerve disease, the inability to solve Algebraic equations, and general, all-around irritability due to these complications. Oral medication for Type 2 diabetics was produced, and home urine testing kits were made available by Mattel.

I contracted Type 1 diabetes in 1958. I was an eleven-year-old, and had difficulty controlling my blood sugar due to the fact that I disagreed with my doctor’s unnatural prejudice against root beer, Eskimo Pies and foot-long hot dogs with chili. There were no home blood sugar monitors in those days, only Clinitest tablets, which you dropped into a test tube full of urine and watched bubble and change color. This made testing your sugar levels time consuming and unpleasant, so you only did it on special occasions, like when your parents insisted. My hypodermic syringes in those days were not disposable--they were glass, and the needles were 27-gauge horse needles which I sharpened every so often with a whetstone. Both steel needles and glass syringes were boiled on a semi-regular basis and then kept in a Mason jar full of rubbing alcohol for disinfecting purposes. I often took my injection in my legs, and although on occasion I may have forgotten the shot, to my credit I never gave in to temptation and injected myself through my Levis.

Now there are digital home blood glucose monitors, "human-type" DNA synthesized insulin, implantable insulin pumps, and even pancreatic transplants. Research is presently underway to develop insulin patches and insulin inhalers, and genetic engineers hope to soon manipulate cells within the diabetic’s body to produce insulin.

Before Dr. Banting’s discovery of insulin, the life expectancy of an eleven-year-old diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes was less than a year. Now that same patient can look forward to nearly 80 years of life; 90 if he avoids Eskimo Pies and foot-long hot dogs with chili. Heck, I may make it to 100, if my wife will quit bugging me about getting up on the roof and inspecting those pesky shingles.