The Miracle of Insulin.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17936, 3 December 1923, Page 8

The Miracle of Insulin.

The special article which we publish to-day on "Instdin and I>Labetes" has been written by a auCerer whoso life the new preparation has clearly, saved.

It will therefore be read by most people with, the interest that attaches to all matters of life and death. But if our contributor is right in his estimate that "diabetes is very much more " common than most people think," it be read and re-read, even here in Canterbury, by many to whom it will sound almost like a new charter to health and happiness again. For although it is not claimed that insulin "cures,"' it seems almost safe now to believe that it "saves"— if persevered with, and combined with what amounts, for that particular sufferer', to wise living in other respects. "We have already, in, these columns, warned sufferers against- indulging unwarrantable hopes of insulin. As far back as July we published and drew special attention to a letter (written by a Christchurch physician of the highest standing) warning sufferers that even the discoverer of insulin does not guarantee cures. It is «s necessary now as it was then to emphasise the fact that insulin is a treatment rather • than a remedy. While it gives sufferers more hope than they have ever had before, r, is our duty still to say as we said in July that "it would be a cruel do- " ception to shout already that diabetes "has lost its terrors." At the 6am© time the world knows more now than it did in July of the encouragements as well as of the discouragements. Tho very frank, restrained, and courageous account given by our contributor —a man whom many in Christchurch have seen sinking from health into hopeless invalidism, and with the aid of insulin climbing the steep hill of health again —is evidence that insulin will enable many "to carry on without any unbearable hardship." The hope sufferers once had that after a series of injections the functions of the pancreas would be restored has so far proved an illusion. It has been found instead that if the injections cease the symptoms of tho disease quickly reappear, and become more serious, and for acute sufferers that seems to imply treatment throughout life. But it apparently dees not mean any longer death in life. A patient who writes in a recent number of the "Spectator" says that if "it " comes rather as a shock to discover " that humab reactions are determined "by internal secretions, that an increase of a decimal point in tho sugar "in the blood can drive out pity and "emotion. ... a few drops of

"insulin injected under the skin will " re-establish the body and give a new "structure to the mind. 4 i . On " Saturday J had two injections, and on "Sunday morning I found that I was " standing up, without giving it a " thought, to shave. It was probably " the first time for five years £hat I had "done anything standing up which I " might have done sitting down."

If, therefore, we think of insulin in, the meantime only as a wonderful preparation that holds off death, and the loss of fitness that is almost as bad as death j we must realise its significance to the State as well as to the individual. But its benefits at present are woefully restricted by its cost. Our contributor makes this sad comment: "One can. infer that anyone receiving " insulin treatment is either a rich " man or is getting it free as charit- " able aid." In Britain it is said that the "minimum expenditure in an aver- " age case" is 25s a week: in New Zealand the cost would seem to be anything up to 25s a day, and they are a fortunate (unfortunate) few indeed who can afford that. While experts continue to work at the physiological problem, the task for the community at large is to devise an economic pathway to such benefits as are now admittedly available.