The history of the discovery of the endocrine function of the pancreas. Modelling of diabetes mellitus

Abstract

The intensive use of modelling techniques on animals of human diseases began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Experimental modelling of diabetes mellitus should be picked out for originality of its method and as a model of the socially significant disease. O. Minkowski demonstrated that the pancreas removal leads to the accumulation of sugar in the animals’ blood and urine. Later, L.V. Sobolev showed that the ligation of the excretory duct leads to the atrophy of a part of the digestive gland, whereas its insular part is saved and the diabetes does not occur. This allowed to Sobolev to come to the conclusion that the removal of the pancreas according Minkowski leads to the emergence of diabetes due to the removal of the islets of Langerhans, which secrete a substance (insulin) that regulate blood sugar. L.V. Sobolev for obtaining undefeated by digestive enzymes active anti-diabetic extract (insulin) suggested to use the atrophied by ligation the pancreas duct of adult animals or the normal pancreas of newborn calves. 20 years later, in 1923, the canadian researchers Banting and Macleod received the Nobel prize for obtaining insulin and its introduction into clinical practice. There were used the methodsproposed by L.V. Sobolev in the early twentieth century.