With the exploding epidemic of diabetes around the world almost everyone knows someone whose life is touched by this disease. Professor Tattersall brings diabetes to life and gives us a fascinating look into how some very smart people tried to unravel the mysteries of diabetes across the centuries. For those who think that Atkins was the first to give us "low carb" diets just imaging eating the diet that army surgeon John Rollo inflicted on his patient Captain Meredith in 1797! Long before anyone understood how the pancreas worked (or that it was even involved as a cause of diabetes)physicians struggled to help their patients survive the mysterious "pissing evil." With great wit and a steady compassion for the sufferer Tattersall brings diabetes to life in a very readable, yet carefully researched an accurate account of this fascinating and very human condition.
Author(s): Robert Tattersall
Series: Biographies of Diseases
Edition: 1
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 240
Contents......Page 8
List of illustrations......Page 10
Prologue......Page 12
1 The pissing evil: defining the disease......Page 21
2 Unravelling the role of the pancreas......Page 42
3 Insulin: a force of magical activity......Page 63
4 The dark ages......Page 90
5 Treating long-term complications......Page 109
6 Adult-onset diabetes and tablets at last......Page 126
7 At the laboratory bench......Page 147
8 The pharmaceutical era......Page 170
9 Diabetes becomes epidemic......Page 189
Postscript......Page 208
A......Page 212
E......Page 213
G......Page 214
L......Page 215
N......Page 216
R......Page 217
V......Page 218
Notes......Page 220
Further reading......Page 230
D......Page 236
I......Page 237
N......Page 238
T......Page 239
Z......Page 240
