Anthony Harrelson - Pharmaceuticals: The Invention of Insulin

Especially in the modern world, drugs and medicine have been very influential on our everyday lives. They have offered ways to cure disease, treat symptoms, and alleviate general discomfort for quite some time now. Throughout the history of pharmacy, there have been a few hallmark moments that mark a huge shift in the industry, one that would change the way that we look at it forever. One such shift came in the form of a series of experiments being performed all the way from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. These experiments would reveal that diabetes was caused by the absence of a necessary chemical compound in the body that was naturally produced by the pancreas. This would begin the attempts to develop an adequate substitute for that substance to treat and try to cure diabetes.

In 1869, Oskar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering would figure out that you could even cause diabetes in dogs if you removed their pancreas. This cemented the fact that the pancreas was the sole producer of the substance that was in short supply for those who were diabetic. Then, in the 1920s, a professor from Canada by the name of Frederick Banting would expand on this study, finding that if you injected the dog with an extract from a healthy pancreas, it would stop the diabetic symptoms the dog was exhibiting. It was not long before that extract would be shown to work on people. This was a great stride in medicine and science as a diabetic therapy. Unfortunately, developing insulin was quite difficult because it was all but impossible to produce the substance in raw enough quantities and purity to have a substantial effect.

Eventually, a chemist by the name of George Walden would discover that if you slightly adjusted the pH of a pancreatic extract, it allowed for a relatively pure insulin grade to be produced. This would then establish the standard procedure after a fight ensued where a similar purification method was being developed. Before this treatment, people with diabetes were only expected to live for a few months.

Anthony Harrelson is the CEO of a Biopharmaceutical company that strives to combat and destroy disease.

The Author writes articles for medical and business field. He has also contributed to Wikipedia, Squidoo and Hubpages. His articles have been published in print as well as online magazines.