Bittersweet
Diabetes, Insulin, and the Transformation of Illness
Chris Feudtner
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 01/2004
Pages: 320
Subject: Health and Fitness, Medical
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807863183
DESCRIPTION
Bittersweet chronicles this history of diabetes through the compelling perspectives of people who lived with this disease. Drawing on a remarkable body of letters exchanged between patients or their parents and Dr. Elliot P. Joslin and the staff of physicians at his famed Boston clinic, Feudtner examines the experience of living with diabetes across the twentieth century, highlighting changes in treatment and their profound effects on patients' lives. Although focused on juvenile-onset, or Type 1, diabetes, the themes explored in Bittersweet have implications for our understanding of adult-onset, or Type 2, diabetes, as well as a host of other diseases that, thanks to drugs or medical advances, are being transformed from acute to chronic conditions. Indeed, the tale of diabetes in the post-insulin era provides an ideal opportunity for exploring the larger questions of how medicine changes our lives.