The First Successful Treatments- The Diabetes Cure
Despite everyone’s lack of belief, he set out to test his idea with his assistant, Charles Best, a fourth-year student who won the right to work with Banting on a coin flip. They first began operating on 10 dogs. To begin, he removed the pancreases of some of the dogs, causing diabetes. Then, he extracted the secretions from the dogs with altered pancreases and injected it into the dogs with no pancreases. However, he wasn’t initially successful, with 7 dogs dying in the first 2 weeks. However, after some alterations to the extract, he injected the new extract into a collie and the results were stunning. The dog, which just earlier that day was in essence crippled, had begun to bounce around the lab in a lively fashion. They called this phenomenal extract, “insulin”. Banting now turned his attention toward human testing with the first trials performed with Banting and Charles Best injecting the extract on each other. Once convinced on the safety of insulin, it was time for the testing to broaden to a public audience.
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