22. Wind in the wrong direction again!

Do you remember the powerful smells that sometimes wafted over different parts of Dartford from the Burroughs Wellcome factory years ago?

Sometimes, when the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, these organic or chemical smells could be smelt across the Joyce Green Hospital site and it used to amuse some of us - staff and students alike - to joke about it perhaps being the latest occasion when Burroughs Wellcome were “boiling up animal carcases to extract the insulin” from them. Not politically very correct nowadays I appreciate, but we were young then and less well informed.

Whether what we were smelling WAS actually coming from the insulin extraction processes in the factory or not is difficult to say but I think it’s true that insulin production took place there and that as a result many thousands of people have cause to be grateful to the biochemists and staff involved.

This month marks the 75th Anniversary of the first occasion when a patient was first treated for diabetes by an insulin injection.

Other scientists had done a lot of the ground work prior to the 1920s but it was of course Dr Fred Banting (previously an orthopaedic specialist at Toronto Children’s Hospital), with the help of a medical student called Charles Best and a biochemist named James Colip - working together at The University of Toronto - who eventually produced insulin for injection from the pancreases of calves.

Leonard Thompson, a 14 yr old local boy had had diabetes for the previous two years and was close to death prior to receiving this, the very first, first insulin injection on January 11th 1922. However, he had a violent allergic reaction to this strange protein and all further injections had to be postponed until additional refinements could be made to this magic potion. The team apparently worked day and night to improve the quality of the insulin and Leonard eventually received his 100% successful second injection on 23rd January 1922.

Prior to this, anyone told that they had developed diabetes knew that they were simultaneously being given a death sentence because most diabetics died within weeks or months of being diagnosed. Leonard Thompson however lived for another 11-14 years as result of receiving regular insulin injections. There seems to be some difference of opinion about what he finally died of but how grateful he must have been for those ten or more years of relatively good health?

Incidentally the Kent Diabetes Information website: www.kentdiabetesinfo.co.uk is dedicated to Leonard and you can see a photo of him on their site.

Whilst the early insulin treatment programmes and patient studies took place in Canada, the British government quickly approved five pharmaceutical companies in the U.K. to manufacture insulin and, as the history books all show, Burroughs Wellcome Ltd was one of them.

The first British insulin was produced and used in 1923, although whether the Burroughs Wellcome factory in Dartford had the privilege of manufacturing the first batch I have no idea. Neither do I know whether those strong odours that sometimes wafted over the Temple Hill Estate in days gone by truly arose from the insulin manufacturing processes?

Finally if you would like to see an early picture of their factory on Mill Pond Road one can be seen on the www.oldukphotos.com/kent_dartford.htm website.