GREAT DISCOVERY.

Feilding Star, Volume 5, Issue 991, 5 January 1927, Page 7

GREAT DISCOVERY.

AN INSULIN CLAIM. STEP FORWARD LN. THE DIABETES WAII, SOME NEW EXPERIMENTS. Warsaw. Dr. Cashing Funk wlio lias succeeded iii decomposing insulin and. isolating tile substances contained in it. •explained His discovery further when *een at Ills laboratory m Warsaw today. '• Insuliu, which, hag been used so successfully- in the treatment of diabetes, is now proved to consist of two components. One is useful, ' while the other is distinctly harmful. Blood tests irere carried out to-day with a number of rabbits which had been injeoted with ft ho. newly discovered substances.

One of the components which constitutes 10 or 16 per cent, of the uisulin strikingly increases' the quantity of blood sugar. The other component lias an exactly opposite effect.'. I;---- v- : . •

Dr, Funk’s object now (is to find the amount of each substance required to produce the greatest curative effect. He hopes to complete his experimentsi within a few days. He emphasises the fact that he is a chemist, and does not. therefore, pretend to ;prophesy concerning the. medical value of his discovery, but scientists have endeavoured - to decompose insulin since it was first known and the accomplishing of this feat is a certain step, forward in the war against diabetes. WILL GREATLY HELP. London. Details of Dr. Funk’s discovery are awaited' with considerable interest by British specialists. “It is undoubtedly an important step forward-m the treatment of diabetes/' said,Dr, ,Q Leyton, on© of the greatest authorities on insulin, “but it is too soon to express an opinion on its practical value. Dr. Funk lias a great reputation as an accurate observer. The theory that insulin consists of two components, one of which increases blood’ sugar and another which lias the opposite effect, seems to me to be very likely true. “Dr, Funk’s discovery will certainly help us eery much.”

The insulin cur e for diabetes wo& discovered-only two years ago by Dr. F. G. Banting, of Toronto. Hundreds of lives have already been saved by the treatment.