#onthisday in 1893, Eliot Joslin begins diabetes research
On this day in 1893, Eliott Joslin, a Boston physician, examined Mary Higgins, a young girl suffering from diabetes. Mary Higgins’s case was the first entry that Joslin made in a ledger that he kept for the rest of his career studying and treating diabetes.
Joslin was the first doctor to keep a diabetes registry, and this registry allowed him to effectively track and treat the disease.
Joslin was an advocate of patient education and strongly believed that training patients to monitor their diabetes would save lives. He wrote the first textbook about diabetes in 1916. In it, he noted a 20 percent decrease in mortality when patients instituted a program of diet and exercise. His private clinic formally became the Joslin Diabetes Center in 1952. The center currently supports the world’s largest diabetes research team.
The above pages are from Joslin’s “Diabetic Manual for the Mutual Use of Doctor and Patient,” published in 1929. He dedicated the manual to “Those Individuals Who Have Conquered Diabetes by Living Longer With It Than They were Expected to Live Without It.“
Joslin’s manual emphasized the ability of patients with diabetes to live full, normal lives. The above page shows a girl doing a handstand after taking her insulin.
Joslin's manual was used throughout the United States, including in classes at Boston’s Dorchester High School.
