Medicine: Devil's-Club v. Diabetes

To a doctor of Prince Rupert, remote Canadian island just south of the Alaskan border, not long ago went a patient to undergo an operation. Suddenly he showed signs of diabetes. The physician, Dr. Richard Geddes Large, promptly dosed the man with insulin and asked him what he had been taking all these years in its place. The man said it was an infusion in hot water of the root of a spiny, prickly shrub called devil's-club (Echinopanax horridus). British Columbia Indians take potions of devil's-club for whatever ails them.

To doctors...

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