Diabetes A History Lesson: Diabetes – a Greek word meaning ‘to siphon’. Not a very pleasant picture is it?
For more than 3,000 years there has been an acknowledgement of the disease known as diabetes. Physicians, in their limited understanding of the disease, offered hope in the form of such remedies as oil of roses, raw quinces, gelly of viper’s flesh, and fresh flowers of blind nettles – although at the time most physicians also realized that even with their best care the patient would likely die within a year.
Aretaeus who is credited with naming the malady referred to the disease as a liquefying process of the body. It may have seemed that way due to the more frequent urge most diabetics have to urinate and the intense thirst many diabetics face without proper care.
Between the 17th and early 20th century physicians diagnosed the disease by tasting the patient’s urine. A sweet taste generally elicited a prognosis of diabetes.
Prior to 1923 there was very little a diabetic could do, but wait certain death. Doctors tried to find a cure or at the very least something to slow the process, but the patient would invariably enter a diabetic coma and would pass away within a few hours to a few days.
Leonard Thompson was the brave boy who first received insulin. This inaugural use of insulin was accomplished when experiments on a diabetic dog conducted by Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles Best led to a breakthrough 3,000 years in the making. This duo discovered pancreatic fluid was useful in keeping the pet alive. That led to the discovery that insulin may be the needed element for diabetics. This breakthrough was proclaimed miraculous.
The ‘siphon’ of diabetes was slowed substantially over the next few decades as physicians learned there were actually two types of diabetes requiring different treatments. More effective insulin types were produced.
Insulin was administered by injection, but the glass syringes and large needles had to be boiled for daily sterilization and were used repeatedly until 1961 when single use syringes were finally made available.
Glucose meters arrived in 1969. These bulky first-run machines were replaced by smaller and smaller devices over the years.
By 1979 insulin pumps were available for diabetic sufferers. The pump served to imitate the body’s normal distribution of insulin. This was also the year the A1c test was developed as well as a bulky device that allowed for insulin delivery within the body without the use of a needle.
Believe it or not it wasn’t until the early 1990s that medical professionals finally began advising their patients that effective control of blood glucose was important to the overall success of managed care as well as enabling the patient to live a longer life.
Science continues to fine-tune treatment options by investigating ways for the body to use insulin more efficiently and stimulating the body to aid in the effort of eliminating excess blood glucose. The end result is more treatment options for diabetics and a greater freedom to enjoy a life that would likely not have been possible 100 years ago.
The onset of diabetes can be emotionally challenging, but the scientific advancements in just the last twenty years has provided substantial freedom to diabetics and has allowed an incredible life extension to many who might otherwise have had no hope.
Much is made of diabetes and rightfully so. Much is now known about the disease, how it affects the body and ways to minimize its advance. Information is now available to help many avoid the struggles associated with diabetes.
Perhaps one day diabetes itself will be – history.