Insulin-like materials from plant tissues

Abstract

The literature in the field of insulin-like materials from the more common plant tissues has been reviewed, and the discrepancies and erratic results have been presented from a somewhat critical and comparative point of view. An attempt has been made to cite some of the experimental difficulties encountered in a field where many investigators have been unable to duplicate their own observations. The results of the authors' researches have been presented briefly to corroborate the conclusion of previous commentators that the results of many investigations in the field of hypoglycemic plant extracts cannot be accepted at their face vahie.

Cabbage Extracts and Insulin‐like Activity

“…Ederer (1927) found that cruder extracts of cabbage when administered by mouth had a similar effect, and Macdonald and Wislicki (1938), using methods of extraction and purification not unlike those of Dubin and Corbitt, demonstrated the presence in cabbage of a hypoglycaemic substance orally active in dogs and rabbits. On experimental grounds, the validity of the conclusions drawn by Collip and by Dubin and Corbitt were questioned by Braun and Rees (1935) and by Jorgensen and Lynn (1938). Luntz (1940) on clinical grounds did not consider the findings of Macdonald and Wislicki more than mildly encouraging.In view of the conflicting evidence and of the potential importance of an insulin-like substance which could be administered by mouth, an attempt has been made to repeat the work of Dubin and Corbitt, Ederer, and Macdonald and Wislicki.…”