ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus has been recognized for thousands of years, mainly described by its effects on urine. However, it wasn’t until circa 1900 that real progress took place in understanding the physiological and pathological basis of the disease. 1 Once insulin was discovered, later extracted from animals and then purified and injected into humans, a treatment became available for what had been a fatal disease, mainly type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Insulin treatment obviously required monitoring body glucose levels, not the least of which is the risk for hypoglycemia that might be deadly. In the mid-1950s, tablets for urine glucose level monitoring became widely available, soon replaced by strips. During the 1960s, blood glucose level monitoring became available using color strips that reacted chemically and changed their color according to glucose levels. These had to be deciphered using a color chart, meaning they offered estimated rather than exact measurements. 2 In 1971, the Ames reflectance meter invented by Anton Clemens was the first meter to assess automatically the color change produced by the reagents and offer a point-of-care blood glucose level monitoring system.
