The antidiabetic functions of the pancreas and the successful isolation of the antidiabetic hormone - insulin / by J.J.R. Macleod and F.G. Banting.

  • Macleod, J. J. R. (John James Rickard), 1876-1935
Date:
1923 [©1924]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antidiabetic functions of the pancreas and the successful isolation of the antidiabetic hormone - insulin / by J.J.R. Macleod and F.G. Banting. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/86 (page 14)
    doing so because they were frightened by toxic symp¬ toms, the cause for which they did not understand. The repeated failures to prepare pancreatic extracts that could relieve the symptoms of diabetes and be safe for repeated administration to man seemed to discourage any further attempts in this direction and the search for the pancreatic hormone now came to be the problem ex¬ clusively of the physiologist and biochemist. To this group of experimental investigators, whose work I will now describe, we owe a very great deal for adding a suf¬ ficient amount of positive evidence ,so that hope was not abandoned, that at some time the pancreatic hormone might be discovered. The first research of this group was that of Knowlton and Starling, who in 1912 published results which at¬ tracted a great deal of attention. They stated that the rate at wThich the isolated heart of the diabetic dog con¬ sumes sugar is much less than that of a normal animal. Their experiment consisted in rendering a dog diabetic by extirpation of the pancreas then perfusing the heart and lungs with Locke’s solution containing dextrose. By estimating the amount of dextrose in the perfusion fluid from time to time they calculated the rate at which dextrose is used by the heart, and they concluded that this rate was much less for the diabetic heart than for the normal heart. This would show that the fault in diabetes depends on the fact that the tissues have lost the power to oxidize carbohydrate. They also stated that when a pancreatic extract, made with weak acid, was added to the fluid perfused through the diabetic heart, sugar came to be used up at the same rate as in the normal heart. Other observers in repeating Knowl¬ ton and Starling’s experiment did not obtain the same results. Starling and various collaborators afterwards pointed out that a considerable disappearance of sugar occurs in the lungs in such a heart-lung preparation as