When I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, all I knew about the disease was that I would be dependent on insulin for the rest of my life. I didn’t think much about the details of the invention of insulin until I became more involved in diabetes advocacy. I was surprised to learn that until the discovery of insulin in 1921, a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes was a death sentence.
Diabetes is one of the most studied diseases in the history of medicine, and its first mention was made by a doctor who proposed a treatment with a decoction of bone, wheat, grain, sand, green lead, and earth. It dates back to a group of Egyptian medical books. Indian physician Sushruta and surgeon Charaka were able to distinguish his type 1 diabetes from his type 2 diabetes, called “Madumeha” (literally “honey urine”).
The term “diabetes” was introduced in 1674 by the English physician Thomas Willis, who defined diabetes as “an infuriating evil.” It was in 1776 that Matthew Dobson, a physician, natural philosopher, and experimental physiologist, discovered that the urine of diabetics was sweet due to excess sugar.
Until the discovery of insulin, doctors were confused about the cause of diabetes. Was it a kidney or metabolic problem? Without knowing the cause, all sorts of bizarre treatments were prescribed, from high-calorie diets to fasting to opiates. The founder of the Joslin Diabetes Center advocated extensive, long-term fasting and nutritional deficiencies as a treatment for diabetes, coining the term “starvation diet.”
It took many years and experiments to discover that the problem was in the pancreas.
It is not my goal to share with you the long history and papers surrounding the discovery of insulin. Rather, I hope it will inspire you to think about the groundbreaking discoveries and miracles of medicine and science that we have achieved as a human race.
I’m not a science geek. I’m a physical and emotional type of dancer. Diabetes has made me interested in things that normally wouldn’t interest me. I’m starting to like this new part of myself because it’s made me more rational, rational, and logical. Especially now in the midst of this pandemic.
I will admit that I have been trolling conversations on Facebook to try to put myself in the shoes of friends who are struggling in the current climate. Those who are adamant that the vaccines we are being asked to take are dangerous and that the statistics and scientists are wrong, coerced, or lying are saying that there is a bigger plan afoot. This is because they are doing so. That our freedoms are under threat, that we are now living in George Orwell’s 1984. Not only that, we have to be firm and say no.
I agree that these are unprecedented and scary times. But…it seems to me that there is something missing here. This is where the discovery and implementation of life-saving insulin becomes critical.
How did Banting and Best, the two big names who introduced insulin to the world, understand that insulin was the key? They had to experiment. Once they had a hunch that they were on the right track, they gave themselves an injection to see what would happen. The final step was to inject people with diabetes who were dying.
It is because of these dangerous human experiments and years of experimentation and research that I am here today. This was a graphic, cutting-edge medical experiment.
Now we are in 2021. Friends are at odds with friends, the world is divided, and we live on a knife’s edge. Some of us absolutely believe that the discovery of a coronavirus vaccine is a miracle, and some of us believe that it is a long-term death sentence, the end of life as we know it, and that it is a long-term death sentence. Some are convinced that there is nothing.
But what if this vaccine was like insulin and the beginning of something truly great? New beginnings and advances in science, medicine, and technology are just beginning. Perhaps this mRNA technology is the first sign of a cure for all the genetic incurable diseases we have today. There is plenty of evidence in reputable scientific journals to suggest this.
To my friends who are panicked, angry, or just hesitant and lost. We have many problems today. The climate crisis is one of them.
If we’re willing to believe what climate scientists say, why aren’t we willing to believe what medical scientists say? What’s the difference? Are some bodies more subsumed than others? Most of my friends are afraid of what we are doing to the Earth.
So the question is how can a nature-loving, non-harmful vegan like me think about injecting himself with what appears to be a genetically altering vaccine that he knows nothing about? will occur.
Try diagnosing type 1 diabetes. It changed my perspective on everything. I learned that sometimes you need to put yourself first and trust science in order to live in harmony with nature.
Life is precious and everything that keeps me alive is precious. If that means he injects himself seven times a day with life-saving hormones made in a lab from his sequenced human girlfriend’s DNA, so be it. If that means getting an mRNA vaccine, so be it.I still have many years left to share, support and bring light to this earth
I express my deep respect…
rachel