Long ago, before our time, there was a disease called diabetes. Not contagious, but nevertheless hereditary and in some cases caused by excessive sugar consumption. Back then, before 1922, this disease was incurable but has now been tamed. Yes, I said “domesticated,” and it was domesticated by a little 3-syllable word called insulin. It has come a long way from what it was when it was first used and has changed life as we know it. Its impact on life will last forever and throughout your life. I know for a fact that if I ever face the disease that requires insulin, I would be very grateful to the people who made it. Insulin (which originates from insula, a Latin word for islet) is the internal secretion of the pancreas made up of groups of cells called islets of Langerhans that were discovered by a medical student in 1869 (Allen). This hormone is necessary to allow glucose to enter cells and provide energy. On his way to curing diabetes, in 1889, Oscar Minkowski took a dog's pancreas and days later, flies began infesting his urine. Come to find out, there was sugar in the dog's urine (Enerson). The discovery of this was surprising. Fast forward a decade or three, in 1922, Frederick Banting and Charles Best made the most important discovery using insulin. During this period, insulin preparations were taken from pigs and cattle (Allen). It was crudely extracted from pancreatic tissues. Unfortunately, the pigs and cattle did not emerge happy. It is now accomplished through genetic engineering, which is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology. So nothing and no one is in danger (Allen). Lucky pigs! Before insulin was discovered, life was tragic for people with diabetes. Most, if not all, of them died. Some are even born with…half of paper…a healthy life. While living that healthy life, they have to be more responsible than a person without diabetes because anything could happen. In conclusion, society or life before the discovery of insulin was bad for many people who suffered from this disease. So, thanks to insulin, life has changed then, now and later. Researching this article opened my eyes to many things. I realized that everything we have today, people didn't have back then and died. For me, insulin is more than a cure, it's also a lesson. I learned that you aren't always given everything and that you have to work for something. It took me decades to find a cure for diabetes without people having to starve. Even though it took a long time, they finally managed to get back together. They saved many lives and made a huge impact on lives. Keep trying and maybe you could do the same.