Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Type 1 diabetes

  • A look back at insulin

    Shrestha Saraf Sutton Coldfield, United Kingdom Sanjay Saraf Sudarshan Ramachandran Birmingham, United Kingdom   Sir Frederick Banting and Dr. Charles Best co-discoverers of Insulin. Library and Archives Canada. Via Wikimedia. As we approach the centenary of the isolation, purification, and clinical use of insulin, it is an appropriate moment to reflect on the impact of…

  • Omentum: Much more than “policeman of the abdomen”

    Ashok Singh Chicago, Illinois, United States Histology of activated omentum 3 days after placing a 5 cc slurry of inert polydextran particles of approx. 100 micron diameter (1 million particles) in the abdominal cavity of rats. Note the dramatic change in the size and quality of the omentum. While the native omentum is fatty in…

  • Are we gorging on autonomy?

    Oliver William Morriss Cambridge, England   Ulysses and the Sirens 1891, John William Waterhouse. The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia     A potentially fatal crisis in the contemporary world threatens the very foundations of public health, in that what were formerly known as “diseases of affluence,” namely stroke, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, have…

  • A difficult conversation

    Ajanta NaiduIrvine, California, United States Fifteen years old, Jane sat in the exam room innocently denying that large doses of insulin were causing her severely low blood sugars. Living with type 1 diabetes, she had been prescribed daily insulin injections, which she herself administered at meals. Though she denied injecting more than the prescribed amount,…