What is Insulin?

   Insulin, the most effective preparation in the treatment of diabetes, was discovered by Doctors F. G. Banting and C. H. Best while collaborating in the physiological laboratories of the University of Toronto. The announcement by these specialists early in the fall of 1922 that they had discovered a preparation which would lower the sugar content of the blood immediately attracted the attention of physicians in the United States and Canada, and it is regarded as an epoch-making event in the history of medicine.
   Diabetes mellitus is a disease due to the failure of the digestive system properly to convert carbohydrates such as starch in the potato into simple sugars, of which glucose is the most common example. Under nor­mal conditions, these sugars are absorbed by the intestines and carried to the liver where much of the glucose is stored as glycogen. The other portion is carried to the muscles and other tissues, where some of it is expended in energy and some stored as glycogen. In diabetes mellitus, it is probable that the sugar absorbed from the intestines is not stored in the liver or used in the tissues, but that it circulates in excessive quantities in the blood and is excreted in the urine. The loss of this sugar to the system results in a voracious appetite, loss of weight, increasing weakness, melancholy, and finally coma and death. The disease has always been considered in­curable.
   Diabetes is caused by the failure of the pancreas to function since it is certain glands in this organ that supply the fluid necessary for the complete digestion of carbohydrates. Consequently any prepara­tion which will lower the sugar content of the blood is a useful remedy in diabetes. Heretofore, the treatment of this disease has consisted chiefly in restricting the of the patient.