A Brief History of Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease that has plagued Americans for decades, but the history of diabetes goes back much further than that. In fact, the history of diabetes reaches back as far as Ancient Egypt! A physician there mentions a disease that has frequent urination or polyuria as a major symptom. Ancient Greek doctors thought the disease caused a melting of limbs and flesh into urine. The ancient medical diagnostic tool for determining diabetes was, strangely, for a doctor to sample a bit of the patient's urine. If the taste was sweet, diabetes was diagnosed. Clearly, malpractice suits had not been invented yet.

The history of diabetes went largely unchanged through the Middle Ages until a French doctor suggested eating large amounts of sugar as a proscription for diabetes patients during the middle of the 19th Century. Quickly following that, French and Italian doctors began to instead more about the digestive system and linked diabetes to glycogen levels in blood and finally advised individualized diets for those diagnosed with diabetes. French and German scientists also experimented on the pancreas at this time, going so far as to removing it from dogs to understand how the digestive system functions (or doesn't) without it. Clearly, the history of diabetes and the understanding of the disease still had a long way to go.

A huge turning point in the history of diabetes happened in Germany in 1908 when a scientist introduced the first injectable pancreatic extract to treat glycosuria (low blood sugar). This practice had mixed results and vicious side effects but was an important first step in the history of diabetes and treatment.

Finally, in 1921, a crucial year in the history diabetes, insulin is 'discovered'. A couple of Canadian scientists were able to keep alive a dog lacking a pancreas several months with a steady dose of insulin injections. This was a break-through as now there was substantial evidence lacking diabetes with a malfunctioning pancreas. Scientists and doctors alike began work on insulin treatment for human patients with diabetes.

Throughout the rest of the 20th century, the history of diabetes is marked with further sophistication and development of other advances. A standardized insulin delivery syringe was created in 1944. Other advances include insulin pumps, blood glucose monitors, biosynthesized human insulin, and the insulin pen delivery system. The history of diabetes continues to be written as more and more is learned about the disease.