Charles Best, one of the victims of the Nobel Prize and main actor in the process, tells his version: "I was 22 years old and prepared to obtain the degree in Physiology and Biochemistry ...
In 1889, Oscar Minowsky, in Germany, had removed the pancreas of a dog to see if he could live without him ...
We begin to operate dogs to link the pancreatic ducts.
On July 27 we obtained the atrophic pancreas we wanted.We fragment it in a mortar and freeze the mixture ...
A diabetic dog waited at the gates of death, so weak that he could not lift his head.Fred injected him into a 5 ml vein of the filtering.The dog seemed to have improved.From a leg I extracted a few drops of blood to determine the concentration of glucose, Banting did not depart.The concentration of blood glucose descended gradually.
This was the moment of greatest emotion in Banting's life and in mine. "
The resulting insulin was successful in dogs.In December, McLeod dedicates his entire research department to the insulin project and recruited the biochemist, Bertram Collip to purify it."You had to inject the dogs, get blood to analyze and collect urine, who had learned to jump on a bank, lift a leg to be extracted the blood sample and stay still while receiving the injection of which his life depended. For 70 days the poor animal lived well, but then theextract...
We needed almost all the isletina that we could extract from a degenerate pancreas to keep a dog alive one day.Would the pancreas of the unborn calves be rich in isletina?We headed to a slaughterhouse ... we could already keep diabetic dogs alive for the time we wanted.
Would insulin be effective in humans? ... On the other side of the street, at the General Hospital of Toronto, a 14 -year -old boy, Leonard Thompson was admitted.In two years of diabetes he had lost 30 k and had barely strength to lift the head of the pillow.Doctors could only expect him to live, at most, a few weeks.We had proven that an insulin cocktail managed by the mouth had no effect.Banting and I had no choice but to climb the sleeves of the shirt;I injected our extract and he injected me.The next day we had slightly sore arms, but nothing more.
On January 22 we inject insulin into the small and thin arm of the almost dying boy.The tests began again and the history of our dogs was repeated.The concentration of blood sugar descended in an impressive way.Leonard began to eat normally, his sunken cheeks were filled again and life returned to its consumed muscles.
The clinical improvement was immediate.The blood glucose was reduced from 520 to 120. Glucosuria was minimized from 71 to 9 gr in 24 h and cetonuria disappeared.Leonard Thompson experienced undoubted well -being, recovering his mobility and activity.
Leonard was going to live.It was the first of tens, and after hundreds, thousands and millions that have benefited from insulin.
It was the first patient treated successfully with insulin.In February, 6 patients followed the same protocol as Leonard Thompson, all with satisfactory results.
