Leonard Thompson (diabetic)

Leonard Thompson was born on Pickering Street near the beaches of Toronto on 17 July 1908, to parents Harold and Florence Thompson. He was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus, and was first treated at the Hospital for Sick Children before being transferred to the care of physicians Andrew Almon Fletcher, Duncan Archibald Graham, and Walter Ruggles Campbell.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NEW8NwCXjGoC&pg=PA112 |title=The Discovery of Insulin |isbn=9780226075631 |last1=Bliss |first1=Michael |date=15 February 2013}}

Thompson received his first injection in Toronto, Ontario, on January 11th, 1922, at 13 years of age. Thompson's first dose had an apparent impurity which caused an allergic reaction. A refined process was quickly developed to concentrate the pancreatic extract.{{Cite book |last=Abramson |first=John |title=Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It |date=2022 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=9781328957818 |pages=61}} Twelve days later, on January 23, he began a two-week series of daily injections that rapidly improved his health, allowing him to live to until dying of pneumonia at age 26.[http://www.100years.ualberta.ca/achievements.cfm?profile=8 History of Diabetes, from Collip to Shapiro] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430040638/http://www.100years.ualberta.ca/achievements.cfm?profile=8 |date=2008-04-30 }}{{cite web |last=Markel |first=Howard |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-a-dying-boy-became-the-first-to-beat-diabetes |title=How a Boy Became the First to Beat Back Diabetes |website=PBS Newshour |publisher=PBS |date=11 January 2013}}

Until insulin was made clinically available, a diagnosis of diabetes was a death sentence, more or less quickly (usually within months, and frequently within weeks or days).{{cite web |url=https://insulin.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/insulin%3AP10046 |title=Formal photograph of Leonard Thompson | the Discovery and Early Development of Insulin }}{{cite web |url=https://insulin.library.utoronto.ca/about/patients |title=From a Patient's Point of View | the Discovery and Early Development of Insulin }}

• Gladys Boyd, paediatrician, pioneer in the treatment of juvenile diabetes.
• Charles Best, co-discoverer of insulin.
• Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, a notable early recipient of insulin.
• Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin.
• Islets of Langerhans
• Pancreas
• James D. Havens, first American to receive insulin from Toronto.

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ii0pAQAAIAAJ|title = The Discovery of Insulin|isbn = 9780226058993|last1 = Bliss|first1 = Michael|date = 2007}}

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967772020974355?journalCode=jmba

• {{Find a Grave|155648732}}

{{Authority control}}

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Category:1908 births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:People with type 1 diabetes

Category:Deaths from pneumonia in Ontario

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