Department of Medical Sciences, University of Turin, Corso AM Dogliotti 14, 10126, Turin, Italy.
Acta Diabetol. 2021 Jan;58(1):1-4. doi: 10.1007/s00592-020-01642-1.
The dawn of the insulin era can be placed in 1921, when Banting and Best started their experiments which led, a year later, to the successful treatment of diabetes. They were preceded by the discoveries of the pancreatic cause of diabetes by Minkowski and von Mering in 1889 and of the islets by Paul Langerhans in 1869. The achievement of the first targeted treatment in medical history was a landmark of medical progress. However, it was accompanied by a mixture of human greatness and misery. Genius and recklessness, ambition and deception, camaraderie and rivalry, selflessness and pursuit of glory went along with superficial search of the existing literature, poor planning, faulty interpretation of results, failure to reproduce them, and misquoting of reports from other laboratories. Then as now, such faults surface whenever human nature aims to push forward the boundaries of knowledge and pose a real challenge in today's world, as the scientific method strives to keep healthy in the face of growing anti-scientific feelings.
胰岛素时代的曙光可以追溯到 1921 年，当时班廷和贝斯特开始了他们的实验，一年后成功治疗了糖尿病。在此之前，明科夫斯基和冯梅林于 1889 年发现了糖尿病的胰腺病因，而朗格汉斯于 1869 年发现了胰岛。在医学史上首次实现有针对性的治疗是医学进步的一个里程碑。然而，它伴随着人性的伟大和悲惨。天才和鲁莽、野心和欺骗、友情和竞争、无私和追求荣耀，与对现有文献的肤浅搜索、糟糕的计划、对结果的错误解读、无法重现结果以及对其他实验室报告的错误引用并存。当时和现在一样，每当人类的本性试图推动知识的边界，并在当今世界构成真正的挑战时，科学方法就会在面对日益增长的反科学情绪时努力保持健康。
