Leonard Thompson (diabetic)
Encyclopedia
Leonard Thompson is regarded as the very first person to have received injection of insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....

 as a treatment for diabetes. He received his first injection in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, on January 11, 1922, at 14 years of age. The first injection had an apparent impurity which was the likely cause for the allergic reaction
Allergy
An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...

 he displayed. After a refined process was promptly developed for extracting the insulin, the purified dosage was successfully delivered to young Leonard Thompson twelve days after his first dosage was administered. He then showed signs of improved health and went on to live thirteen more years taking doses of insulin. He died of pneumonia at age 27.

Until insulin was made clinically available, a diagnosis of diabetes was an invariable death sentence, more or less quickly (usually within months, and frequently within weeks or days).

See also

  • Elizabeth Hughes Gossett
    Elizabeth Hughes Gossett
    Elizabeth Hughes Gossett the daughter of U.S. Politician Charles Evans Hughes, was one of the first patients treated with insulin...

    , first person treated in US
  • Frederick Banting
    Frederick Banting
    Sir Frederick Grant Banting, KBE, MC, FRS, FRSC was a Canadian medical scientist, doctor and Nobel laureate noted as one of the main discoverers of insulin....

  • Islets of Langerhans
    Islets of Langerhans
    The islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine cells. Discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans at the age of 22, the islets of Langerhans constitute approximately 1 to 2% of the mass of the pancreas...

  • Pancreas
    Pancreas
    The pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both an endocrine gland producing several important hormones, including insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin, as well as a digestive organ, secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes that assist...

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