The History of Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Diseases with the cardinal features of diabetes mellitus were recognized in antiquity. The recognition that diabetes was not a single disease was important in initiating research that has helped to unravel the causes of hyperglycaemia. For the first decade after its discovery, insulin was available only in its soluble (regular) formulation, whose short-action profile required multiple daily injections. The introduction of insulin was only one aspect of the management of this acute and previously fatal complication of diabetes. In 1933, the death rate from ketoacidosis in Boston was only 5%, but elsewhere in North America and Europe it averaged 30% and could be as high as 75%. As late as 1950, the outcome of pregnancy in women with diabetes was still very poor in most units, with perinatal fetal losses of 45–65%, some 10 times higher than in the general population.

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