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On this day, January 23, 1922, fourteen year old Canadian Leonard Thompson received the first successful insulin injection as a treatment for diabetes. Thompson, who was in a coma due to Type 1 Diabetes, was given an injection on January 11, but apparent impurities caused a sever allergic reaction. Biochemist James Collip worked to improve and purify the ox-pancreas extract. The second injection on January 23 brought the boy out of his coma and was a complete success. Prior to the development of insulin, people with Type 1 diabetes did not survive for more than a few weeks or months with the disease.
In 1891, British humorist Jerome K. Jerome wrote that “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories.”
Three classic episodes of The History Guy about how the Christmas season survives even tragedy.
The “Great Sedition Trial” uncovered shocking connections at the time with the German reich that we were fighting, and challenged the idea that the nation was of a single mind during the war. It also challenged exactly how far the national commitment to freedom of speech and opinion reached, especially in extraordinary times.
