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

  • John James Rickard Macleod
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.

    19/86 page 15
    was used in these experiments and that the results were therefore inconclusive. The subsequent investigations of Starling and Evans, on the respiratory exchange in heart-lung preparation, are, however, of great im¬ portance in showing that oxidation of sugar is interfered with in the diabetic heart. The next investigator I will mention is E. L. Scott who in 1912 prepared alcoholic extracts of the pancreas and showed that they could sometimes relieve certain of the symptoms of diabetes in animals. Toxic symp¬ toms, however, developed and the investigations were not carried further. Another worker is Murlin who prepared alkaline extracts of the pancreas, and also of the duodenum, and demonstrated that they reduced the degree of glycosuria in diabetic dogs. Finding, how¬ ever, that the latter effect could also be obtained by the administration of alkalies alone, the investigation was abandoned, except for some observations on the respira¬ tory quotient, until after the first publication of the initial experiments of Banting and Best in Toronto. Murlin made the mistake, in my judgment, of using the wrong medium with which to extract the pancreas. Al¬ though insulin is stable to a certain extent in alkali, it • is less so than in other reactions, and Murlin’s failure to demonstrate the presence of the pancreatic hormone is partly due to the fact that he used alkali in the method of extraction. Moreover, he fell into the same error as others in that he usually confined his attention to the study of one symptom at a time and did not demand evidence obtained by the observation of several symp¬ toms. I think there is no more common mistake in modern medical science than to base conclusions on re¬ sults obtained by observing one symptom, or one change in a physiological function. Before any final conclusion is permissible regarding the action of an extract, I be¬ lieve, one should always insist upon observing the effect
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