Elizabeth Evans Gossett

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hughes_Gossett

Elizabeth Hughes Gossett (August 19, 1907 - April 21, 1981) the daughter of U.S. politician Charles Evans Hughes, was one of the first patients treated with insulin. She received over 42,000 insulin shots before she died in 1981.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Hughes was born August 19, 1907 in the New York State Executive Mansion in Albany, New York, to Antoinette Carter and Charles Evans Hughes, who was Governor of New York at the time of her birth.

Elizabeth developed diabetes in 1919 at age 11. She was treated initially by Dr. Frederick M. Allen at his special clinic, the Physiatric Institute in Morristown, New Jersey. Dr. Allen put Elizabeth on a strict diet and continued to monitor her condition over the next three years while she lived at home with a private nurse. The diet was typically as low as 400 calories per day, and was restricted to a point below which sugar was detected in the urine. It caused a gradual weight loss from 75 pounds to a mere 45 pounds from 1919 to 1922 when insulin became available.

By the winter of 1921/22 her health was deteriorating seriously; she was 14 years old and weighed 52 pounds. In 1922 her mother contacted Canadian doctor Frederick Banting in Toronto. Elizabeth came to Toronto with her mother in August 1922 and began receiving insulin from Dr. Banting.

Elizabeth's health improved with insulin treatment. She returned to school in 1923 and graduated from Barnard College in 1929.

Marriage and children

In 1930 she married William T. Gossett, a lawyer who later served as the president of the American Bar Association (1968-9) as well as vice president and general counsel of the Ford Motor Company. They lived in Bloomfield, Michigan and had two daughters and a son.

Career

Elizabeth Gossett was active in civic affairs in the Detroit area. She was a member of the board of trustees of Barnard College, one of the founding trustees of Oakland University, Rochester, a member of the Detroit Urban League, as well as a volunteer at the Merrill-Palmer Institute and at Michigan State University. She was best known as the founder of the Supreme Court Historical Society in 1972 and served as its president until 1979.

Death

Elizabeth Gossett died on April 21, 1981 at the age of seventy-three. Few of her friends or associates knew of her diabetic condition, as she systematically destroyed most of the material documenting her treatments and had expunged all references to diabetes from her father's papers. At the time of her death, she had received 42,000 insulin injections over 58 years.

Legacy

The Hughes Gossett Awards, presented by the Supreme Court Historical Society, are named in her honor. She was portrayed in the Canadian miniseries on the discovery of insulin, Glory Enough for All.

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