1642 WIRSUNG, Johann Georg (1589 – 1643)
Figura ductus cuiusdam cum multiplicibus suis ramulis noviter in pancreate in diversis corporibus humanis observati.
Wirsung, assistant to the celebrated German anatomist Johann Vesling, discovered the excretory duct of the pancreas named for him in 1642. To announce his discovery, Wirsung chose the extremely unusual method of publi…
GMN 7879 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10051
1788 CAWLEY, Thomas
A singular case of diabetes, consisting entirely in the quality of the urine; with an inquiry into the different theories of that disease.
Cawley was the first to suggest a relationship between the pancreas and diabetes, observing that the disease may follow injury to that organ.
GMN 3929 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/5108
1869 LANGERHANS, Paul (1847 – 1888)
Beiträge zur mikroskopischen Anatomie der Bauchspeicheldrüse. Inaugural-Dissertation.
First account of the islets of Langerhans. In 1893 Édouard Laguesse attached the name of Langerhans to the structures. Langerhans did not suggest any function for them. The book was reprinted with an English translati…
GMN 1009 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/821
1877 LANCEREAUX, Étienne (1829 – 1910)
Notes et reflexions à propos de 2 cas de diabète sucré avec altération du pancreas.
Lancereaux was the first definitely to claim a causal relationship between lesions of the pancreas and diabetes.
GMN 3943 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/5182
1900 LAGUESSE, Gustave François Antoine, called Édouard (1861 – 1927)
Histologie du pancreas. In Traité d'anatomie humaine, edited by Paul Julien Poirier & Adrien Charpy, vol. 4, pp. 821-831.
Laguesse, who in 1893 named the islets of Langerhans, established in this work that the islets of Langerhans were the seat of internal secretion of the pancreas. On figures 425 and 427 he drew that are now called "the…
GMN 14160 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16475
1909 MEYER, Jean de (1878 – 1934)
Action de la sécrétion interne du pancréas sur différent organes et en particulier sur la sécrétion rénale.
De Meyer was apparently the first to suggest the name “insuline” for the substance then believed to be secreted by the pancreas.
GMN 1204 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/1843
1921 –1922 BANTING, Sir Frederick Grant (1891 – 1941); BEST, Charles Herbert (1899 – 1978)
The internal secretion of the pancreas.
This paper reports the isolation of insulin. An extract from the pancreas of a dog, removed after ligation of the excretory duct, was found to exercise a reducing influence on the percentage of sugar in the blood. Dig…
GMN 1205 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/1847
1926 ABEL, John Jacob (1857 – 1938)
Crystalline insulin.
Crystalline insulin first obtained. See also J. Pharmacol., 1927, 31, 65-85.
GMN 1206 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/5277
1927 WILDER, Russell Morse (1885 – 1959); ET AL
Carcinoma of the islands of the pancreas; hyperinsulinism and hypoglycemia.
R. M. Wilder, F. N. Allan, M. H. Power, and H. E. Robertson reported the occurrence of carcinoma with hyperinsulinism. They also reported the first operation for hyperinsulinism performed on December 2, 1926 by Willia…
GMN 3972 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/5280
1935 WHIPPLE, Allen Oldfather (1881 – 1963); ET AL
Treatment of carcinoma of the ampulla of Vater.
Pancreaticoduodenectomy for cancer of pancreas. With W. B. Parsons and C. R. Mullins.
GMN 3659.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/4789
1955 SANGER, Frederick (1918 – 2013)
The disulphide bonds of insulin.
Sanger sequenced the amino acids of insulin, the first of any protein. His work “revealed that a protein has a definite constant, genetically determined sequence—and yet a sequence with no general rule for its assembl…
GMN 1207 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/1852
1960 HOWARD, John Malone (1919 – 2011); JORDAN, George Lyman (1921 – )
Surgical diseases of the pancreas.
The first comprehensive textbook on pancreatic disease.
GMN 7878 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10050
1965 KUNG, Yueh-Ting; ET AL
Total synthesis of crystalline bovine insulin.
GMN 1207.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/1854
1973 LACY, Paul Easton (1924 – 2005); KEMP, Charles B.; KNIGHT, Michael J.; SHARP, David W.
Transplantation of isolated pancreatic islets into the portal vein of diabetic rats.
Lacy and colleagues showed that transplanation of murine pancreatic islet tissue into the portal vein of diabetic rats of the same inbred strain normalized the sugar levels and urine output of the rats that received t…
GMN 14161 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16476
