Der Patient als epistemische Größe

Abstract

The development of insulin from 1922 fundamentally changed diabetes therapy. One reason for this was that previous therapeutic approaches, which were primarily based on the hospitalization of those affected, did not fit the high therapeutic potential of the „miracle drug“ insulin. Additionally caused by an overall increase of diabetes cases and an increased life expectancy of diabetics, therapeutics shifted their focus on the individual responsibility of patients to treat themselves under medical supervision. Prescribed technologies of the self not only reconstituted diabetes therapy: diabetic patients now produced new knowledge about themselves through the daily execution of these self-techniques. Thus, diabetic patients became therapeutic subjects actively involved in the making of medical knowledge.