14/11/2025
💚WORLD DIABETES DAY💚 In 1922, at the University of Toronto, scientists went to a hospital ward with children who were comatose and dying from diabetic keto-acidosis. Imagine a room full of parents sitting at the bedside waiting for the inevitable death of their child.
The scientists went from bed to bed and injected the children with the new purified extract - insulin. As they began to inject the last comatose child, the first child injected began to awaken. One by one, all of the children awoke from their diabetic comas. A room of death and gloom, became a place of joy and hope.
The discovery of insulin by Dr. Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip, and John Macleod at the University of Toronto stands as one of the most dramatic breakthroughs in medical history. Before 1922, type 1 diabetes was essentially a death sentence, especially for children, who would waste away despite strict starvation diets.
The first clinical use of insulin in January 1922 transformed the fate of patients almost overnight. That ward of comatose children became a living testament to scientific achievement, within hours, the extract was reversing symptoms once thought irreversible. Parents who had been preparing for funerals were instead embracing their children.
This moment didn’t just save those young lives, it reshaped the future for millions worldwide. Today, insulin remains an essential therapy for people with diabetes, and the events of that day in 1922 are remembered as a turning point from despair to hope in modern medicine.
