Insulin Extractable from the Pancreas and Islet Cell Histology: Comparative Studies in Spontaneous Diabetes in Dogs and Human Subjects

Abstract

The characteristics of diabetes mellitus in man have long been compared, either directly or by inference, with those of diabetes produced in animals by experimental means. From the earliest studies in this field by von Mering and Minkowski1, in the work leading to the discovery of insulin2 (1921), and in many later investigations, the dog has occupied a prominent and productive place amongst experimental animals. In recent years, special aspects of the spontaneous diabetes of dogs have come under study in this laboratory and in that of Professor Henry Ricketts in Chicago. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the available data to determine the degree to which the spontaneous and the experimentally induced diabetes mellitus of dogs correspond with each other and with the spontaneous diabetes mellitus of man, in terms of the insulin extractable from the pancreas and the histological state of the islands of Langerhans. The relationship of these factors to the diabetic state with which they are associated will also be considered.