History+of+Diabetes

=The History of type 1 Diabetes= There is a very long history of diabetes. Diabetes was first described in Egyptian writings around 1500 BC. About AD 230, a Greek physician named Aretaeus is believed to have called the disease diabetes. He described diabetes as "The melting down of the flesh and limbs into urine" Aretaeus wrote that a person with diabetes had an all-consuming thirst that resulted in constant urination. The urine of a person with diabetes contains a lot of extra sugar because the body is unable to break it down effectively. The word "mellitus" was added in 1679 which means honey in Latin because when a doctor tasted the urine of a person diagnosed with diabetes and said it was as sweet as honey.

Until the twentieth century if a person had diabetes, he or she usually dies from it. Today we understand even more about what diabetes is and how to help those with the condition live normal and healthy lives. Nevertheless, we still don't know what exactly causes diabetes, and there are still no cure for it yet. Treatments for diabetes have varied greatly throughout history, from drinking fruit wines to horseback riding, taking lukewarm baths to bloodletting, to eventually, using insulin. In 1889, Dr.Joseph con Mering and Dr.Oskar Minkowski, who believed that there was a direct relationship between the pancreas and diabetes, began experimenting with dogs. In 1910, Dr.edward Sharpey-Shafer of Scotland decided a chemical he called insulin was missing from the pancreas of people with diabetes. Sir Frederick Grant Banting and Charles Herbert Best repeated the work of Von Mering and Minkowski but went a step further and managed to show that they could reverse the induced diabetes in dogs by giving them an extract from the pancreatic islets of Langerhans of healthy dogs. The distinction between what is now known as type 1 and type 2 diabetes was made by Sir  Harold Percival (Harry) Himsworth in 1935; he published his findings in January 1936 in The Lancet. =Home Page= =Cause Effects Treatment Prevention History of Diabetes Notes Bibliography=