Breakthrough Banting, Best, And The Race To Save Millions Of Diabetics

Thea Cooper, Arthur Ainsberg, "Breakthrough: Banting, Best, And The Race To Save Millions Of Diabetics"
English | 2010 | ISBN: 067006470X | EPUB | pages: 320 | 0.4 mb
It is 1919, and Elizabeth Hughes, the 11-year-old daughter of America's most distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, has been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment-starvation-whittles her down to 45 pounds of skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases-a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition, and fist fights. In a race against time and a ravaging disease, Elizabeth becomes one of the first diabetics to receive insulin injections-all while its discoverers and a little-known pharmaceutical company struggle to make it available to the rest of the world.