A Doctor's Wisdom for Diabetics: The Sayings of Elliott Proctor Joslin

By S.K. Sinha

There is in this slim treatise one message given in 1921, exactly one hundred years ago, which if followed may well have limited today's pandemic of diabetes.

The aphorisms, selected by the author, an ex-Joslin Fellow, are from the writings of Elliott Proctor Joslin, the founder of the Joslin Diabetes Centre in Boston and one o

• Language: English
• Publisher: shailendra k. sinha
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648947080

S.K. Sinha

Shailendra K.Sinha is a Sydney University graduate and an ex-Fellow of the Joslin Clinic in Boston who devoted much of his life to the study and practice of diabetes. In 1919 he wrote the biography of Elliott Proctor Joslin in JOSLIN A PIONEER IN DIABETES CARE and in 2020, A DOCTOR'S WISDOM FOR DIABETICS; THE SAYINGS OF ELLIOTT P. JOSLIN. Dr.Sinha is retired and lives with his wife in Sydney, Australia.

Book preview

Introduction

Joslin was best known for his inauguration of education for the diabetic patient.

DM Barnett 1998

Diabetes has afflicted mankind for thousands of years and continues to defy all attempts to control its rise let alone its eradication. Today most, if not all, developed countries face an increasing number of diabetics in their populations. With the condition now being seen to be on the rise in the less developed nations as well, diabetes can indeed be considered a pandemic.

Dr Elliott Proctor Joslin (1869–1962), regarded by many as the greatest diabetologist of the twentieth century, was born in Oxford, a small town in Massachusetts where his father owned a shoe-manufacturing business. Joslin, a Harvard professor and physician devoted his entire life to the study of diabetes and to providing care for those with the condition. He started medical practice in Boston in 1898, more than twenty years before the discovery of insulin in 1921, and worked to the last day of his life. Joslin died on 29 January 1962 at the age of 92 years. His practice remains the centrepiece of the eponymous institution in Boston and every year cares for literally thousands of men, women and children with diabetes. An outstanding scholar, the multilingual New Englander had burst onto the medical scene in 1916 when he published the first English-language textbook, The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus. His opinions and observations on diabetes