Glimpses of the history of insulin.

ABSTRACT

The discovery of the insulin which took place at Toronto, Canada in 1921-22 is one of the most important medical discoveries of the modern age. For this miracle, Prof. John James Macleod and Frederic Grant Banting were Jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 for Physiology or Medicine. Frederick Sanger a British biochemist discovered the structure of insulin in 1958 and was awarded Nobel prize for chemistry. Diabetes mellitus is called Madhumeha in ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine. Egyptians and Greeks knew about it. Greek physician Aretaeus of Capadocia first suggested the term "Diabetes" and described it. Though insulin was discovered about 80 years ago research interest in it still continues unabated. This paper also gives case details of the first patient on whom Insulin was first tried and chronology of research on pancreas and Insulin.