In January 1922, Leonard Thompson was a teenager dying of diabetes in a Toronto hospital. There was no cure for diabetes, and most adolescents succumbed to the disease within a year of diagnosis.
Thompson had endured diabetes for almost three years. The best physicians could advise was a near-starvation diet that reduced Thompson to only 65 pounds. His medical team agreed he was doomed. But then, Thompson received two injections of an experimental intervention— insulin. Within a day, his blood glucose levels stabilized. A lifesaving drug was born.
Soon, insulin was in mass production, and millions of lives were saved. The scientists credited with the discovery won a Nobel Prize. The victory, however, led to a lifelong animosity between the winners.
