The discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921-22 was one of the most dramatic events in the history of the treatment of disease. Insulin was a wonder-drug with ability to bring patients back from the very brink of death, and it was no surprise that in 1923 the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to its discoverers, the Canadian research team of Banting, Best, Collip, and Macleod. In this engaging and award-winning account, historian Michael Bliss recounts the fascinating story behind the discovery of insulin – a story as much filled with fiery confrontation and intense competition as medical dedication and scientific genius. Originally published in 1982 and updated in 1996, The Discovery of Insulin has won the City of Toronto Book Award, the Jason Hannah Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, and the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Before the discovery of insulin, a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. To mark the centenary of this landmark in medicine, this book charts the journey of how insulin was transformed from what one clinician called 'thick brown muck' into the very first drug to be produced using genetic engineering, and which earned the founders of US biotech company Genentech a small fortune. Taking the reader on a fascinating journey, starting with the discovery of insulin in the 1920s through to the present day, Insulin - The Crooked Timber reveals a story of monstrous egos, toxic career rivalries, and a few unsung heroes and heroines. It discusses in detail the circumstances of Canadian scientist Frederick Banting whose award of the 1923 Nobel Prize for this life-saving discovery proved to be both a blessing and a curse for him and explores how the human story behind this discovery still remains one of ongoing political and scientific controversy. The book is the result of the author's own shocking diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes and its story reminds us all of what technology can - and cannot do - for us. As the world struggles to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and face future challenges such as climate change, the lessons that we can learn from the story of insulin have never been more important.

A frank and humorous encyclopedic history of the forgotten life of urine and its many uses in society. Alchemists sought gold in it. David Bowie refrigerated it to ward off evil. In the trenches of Ypres soldiers used it as a gas mask, whereas modern-day terrorists add it to home-made explosives. All the Fullers, Tuckers and Walkers in the phonebook owe their names to it, and in 1969 four bags for storing it were left on the surface of the moon. Bought and sold, traded and transported, even carried to work in jugs, urine has made bread rise, beer foam and given us gunpowder, stained glass, Robin Hood’s tights, and Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring. And we do produce an awful lot of it. Humans alone make almost enough to replace the entire contents of Loch Lomond every year. Add the incalculable volume contributed by the rest of the animal kingdom and it might soon displace a small ocean. No wonder it gets everywhere. In Life of Pee Sally Magnusson unveils the secret history of civilization’s most unsavory and unsung hero, and discovers how our urine footprint is just as indelible as our carbon one.

Are the words that people use bad or are the people that use the words bad? The answer is in this book, which graduates to answering deeper, more life-fulfilling questions like, "When you are born again of God, can you sin?" Every answer includes the precise scripture of where it is found in the King James Version of the Bible. The reader will find that every problem and every question in life can be solved and answered by knowing God's words and obeying Him.

Since ancient times the search for cures for the great scourges that have afflicted humankind has been an ongoing quest, but it is only within the last 200 years that major breakthroughs have occurred and the development of modern medicine has accelerated. The stories behind these miraculous cures are those of intense rivalries and jealousies, bitter public humiliation, unswerving dedication, subterfuge, and great personal struggles. Often these medical advances have truly changed the world. When Edward Jenner developed the concept of vaccination, and with it the cure for smallpox, he found a way to defeat a disease that had affected half a billion people - more than all those affected by wars and other epidemics combined. And while the Black Death still lingers in pockets around the world, it no longer threatens to destroy entire civilisations as it once did. Smallpox, Syphilis and Salvation uncovers the compelling stories of the men and women, innovations and accidents that have led to diseases from polio to syphilis, diphtheria to diabetes, tetanus to leukaemia no longer being the death sentences they once were. It also sounds a note of warning - for some of these diseases are fighting back. It is estimated that tuberculosis now claims one life every fifteen seconds, while new 'superbugs' are resistant to penicillin and other antibiotics. Diseases may once again threaten to crush the world's population, either in the form of biological warfare or simply because they want to survive as much as we do...