L'insuline avant Banting et Best

The discovery of insulin was an enduring adventure and the fruit of many works of morphologists, physiologists, and clinicians. Paul Langerhans described his eponymous islets; Oskar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering produced diabetes in dogs by pancreatectomy; Edouard Laguesse suggested that the islets of Langerhans produced secretion which controlled carbohydrate metabolism. These major discoveries validate the pancreatic origin of diabetes and the emerging doctrine of internal secretions with the feeling that diabetes may be cured by organ extracts. Treatment attempts with varying degrees of success were conducted with obstinacy by clinicians from several countries long before the isolation and use of insulin by Banting and Best, in 1921-1922. Successful isolation of insulin, known as Acomatol and “pancrein”, was first carried out before the Canadian researchers, Banting and Best, published their results. A particular credit goes above all to Züelzer and Reuter, and to Paulescu.