INSULIN TREATMENT

Evening Star, Issue 18334, 23 July 1923, Page 4

INSULIN TREATMENT

NEW DIABETES CURE. Insulin, which Sir Maul Pomare promises to import for the benefit of sufferers from diabetes, is “ a solution of tho internal secretion of the pancreas of tho ox.” .Diabetes mellitus, tho common form of diabetes, is generally held to bo due to the failure of the pancreas to pour its internal secretion into tho blood. Just what the explanation of the chain of effects may bo remains a mystery, but it is established that tho shortcoming on tho part of the pancreas gives rise to certain chemical changes in tho body and very serious illness results. The normal person derives a good deal of benefit from tho consumption of sugar in one form or another, and in the normal healthy body the sugar, which is a fuel food, is carried by tho blood to tho muscles, and after undergoing chemical change is utilised by them. In a person suffering from diabetes, however, the muscles cannot make use of the sugar, which, therefore, accumulates in the blood. Moreover, the muscles, deprived of their usual food, have to find their fuel elsewhere, and so they levy on the fat reserves of tho body. The fat has to undergo chemical change before it is available, and certain residues remain in the blood, acting ns poisons and involving considerable danger to tho patient. These residues aro fatty acids, and in order to neutralise them and deprive them of their poisonous quality, Nature makes still another call on tho reserves of tho body. It wants ammonia, which, as everyone knows, has tho power to neutralise acids, and in order to get ammonia tho albuminous substances of the body aro broken down, tho double drain causing tho wasting that is so marked a feature of the disease.

Diabetes has at length been attacked from a new angle, and the attack seems likely to prove successful. Insulin is tho latest of the drugs derived from animal organs. The thyroid, lymphatic, suprarenal, pituitary, thymus, and mammary glands have all been made to yield extracts of medicinal value, and now the pancreas has been similarly treated. There are two kinds of secretions, one “ external,” of which tho pancreatic juice is an example, and tho other “ internal,” which means that it is discharged into tho blood, and it is tho internal extract that is required in tho treatment of diabetes. Arguing that if the failure of the internal secretion of tho pancreas caused diabetes the disease might bo cured by supplying extract of tho pancreas, Dr F. G. Banting, of Toronto, decided to try the experiment. Insulin is an extract of fresh, healthy beef pancreas. The fresh organ is soaked in a mixture of alcohol and dilute hydrochloric acid, and tho solution thus obtained is sterilised and standardised. It is administered hy hypodermic injection, not by tho mouth. The effect is not permanent, because the injections are merely a, substitute for the daily manufacture of the secretion hy tho healthy organ, and consequently tho treatment has to lie carried on every day.