University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, USA. ralph_madeb@urmc.rochester.edu
The discovery of insulin in Toronto by Dr. Frederick G. Banting and colleagues has been well chronicled. The story of how insulin therapy was introduced into the United States has been less detailed. The first patient to be treated with insulin in the United States resided in Rochester, New York, a city with a then newly developed medical school that had also tried to recruit Dr. Banting. A series of letters from that period provides a description of the course of a juvenile patient with diabetes before and after the use of insulin as a therapeutic agent.