In 1922 an unlikely team of researchers in Toronto made one of the most important medical
breakthroughs of the century: insulin. Their discovery seemed miraculous. When it was given to
diabetic patients on the brink of death their condition rapidly improved. Those present could
barely believe their eyes: they had witnessed resurrection. However this was no simple cure.
Injections must be taken for life. Without them symptoms quickly return often with fatal
results. But while a lifetime on insulin poses great challenges it also offers opportunities.
In this revelatory history Stuart Bradwel looks back on one of medicine's most celebrated
innovations. Setting professional narrative against subjective patient experience he tells the
story of a drug that has challenged many of the basic assumptions upon which medical practice
is built both inside and outside the clinic. Nevertheless Bradwel reminds us that the
centenary of this apparent wonder drug should be no cause for celebration. Insulin often
remains inaccessible to those who need it most: elusive prescriptions uneven availability and
sky-high prices result in rationing and desperate do-it-yourself research and development. In
the face of bootstraps rhetoric and Pharma Bro capitalists patients across the world are left
to fend for themselves. There is a long way to go in the twenty-first century until insulin
truly fulfils the extraordinary promises made by its discovery.
