[Discovery of pancreatic diabetes in Strasbourg]

Although many clinical aspects of diabetes were already known in the second half of the XIXth century, its pathogenesis remained mysterious. The German Medical School of Strasbourg, rich of numerous eminent teachers and researchers such as A. Kussmaul and B. Naunyn in the 1880ies, represented by this time one of the leading centers in diabetes research. The studies of Joseph Freiherr Von Mering on phloridzin-induced glycosuria are an example between others, but the discovery by Oskar Minkowski of the pancreatic origin of the disease undoubtedly stands as the most famous. This discovery was partly indebted to luck since Von Mering and Minkowski were studying a problem of digestive absorption of lipids, but it was greatly due to the excellent clinical and experimental training of Minkowski, as well as his operatory skill. These works, initially criticized by some authors, turned out to stimulate in several countries researchs on the isolation from pancreas of an hypoglycemic substance. Several investigators gave up or failed near the end, which was reached in 1921 by F. Banting and C. Best, subsequently opening the therapeutic era of diabetology.