Breakthrough

July 5, 2010
It was one of the 20th century's medical miracles, and with this retelling of the discovery of insulin (10 months after Caroline Cox's The Fight to Survive: A Young Girl, Diabetes, and the Discovery of Insulin) it's a gripping narrative as well. In 1918, the youngest daughter of former New York governor and future Supreme Court chief justice Charles Evans Hughes was diagnosed with diabetes. At the time, a near-deadly starvation diet was the best hope for sufferers, but four years later, a "pancreatic extract" was showing promise in treating symptoms in animals. Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Hughes was among the first wave of patients to benefit from the marriage of dogged research and commercial enterprise on the part of Lilly & Co. to manufacture the drug. Author and playwright Cooper and finance-veteran-turned-author Ainsberg bolster the account with impressive sourcing. They also pay particular attention to the complexities of the human drama—the indomitable Elizabeth; her visionary parents; the quarrelsome, "crazy," and eventual Nobel Prize–winning researchers; and the bold commercial pioneers. And it's those details that make this extraordinary chapter of medical history so memorable. B&w photo insert.

June 15, 2010

The story of the conquest of diabetes.

In roughly chronological order, Cooper and Ainsberg weave together the stories of the doctor who ran the first clinic for patients with diabetes, the scientists who first isolated insulin, a young woman among the first to receive the new drug and the research director of the pharmaceutical company that launched its production. The authors focus in turn on Dr. Frederick Allen, whose starvation diet could prolong patients' lives but not save them; Frederick Banting, the insightful and persistent scientist whose work with the pancreases of dogs isolated insulin; Elizabeth Hughes, daughter of politician Charles Evans Hughes, whose influence enabled her to become one of the first diabetics to be saved by insulin; and George Clowes of Eli Lilly, who immediately saw insulin's potential and figured out how to produce it commercially. Where research did not provide the necessary dialogue or even the dramatic incidents the authors needed, they have invented their own to enhance the narrative. The result is a work that sometimes reads like a novel, with the characters brought to life through their thoughts, remarks and physical gestures. The irascible Banting, whose hardships, jealousies and struggles with his colleagues seem endless, is perhaps the most fascinating. Young Elizabeth, seen primarily through excerpts from her letters, is a less-realized character than her parents. The authors seem especially intrigued by Elizabeth, however, puzzling over her later refusal to admit to having diabetes and her failure to include diabetes research in her philanthropic efforts. Caroline Cox's The Fight To Survive: A Young Girl's Struggle with Diabetes and the Discovery of Insulin (2009) offers a fuller profile of her but a briefer account of the insulin story.

A readable tale of medical achievement.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2010
Cooper and Ainsberg present an inspirational record of how the confluence of just the right people at just the right time in just the right places launched a boon for diabetics the world over. When Elizabeth Hughes Gossett was laid to rest in 1981 at the age of 73, few people knew that, by all rights, she should never have lived long enough to enter high school, much less graduate college, marry, and have children. Fewer still may have known or appreciated that while still a child, she risked what little life she may have had left by participating in a medical experiment that, if successful, would save her own and millions of other lives. A remarkable story, made more so by the efforts of Frederick Banting, who tipped fate in Elizabeths favor. Just as the honeybee believes its wings will carry it through the air against all physical odds, Banting believed he could perfect a productinsulinthat would save the lives of diabetics. Bees fly and Banting did, and this account makes worthy reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)