Elizabeth Hughes Gossett shouldn’t have survived beyond 11, the age at which she developed type 1 diabetes. Born in Albany, New York, Gossett received her diagnosis in 1918 when diabetes had no known treatment. Tragically, her life expectancy was just a matter of months. Her parents desperately searched for any way to keep their daughter alive. A New Jersey physician had developed a radical course of action: keeping the blood sugar levels of diabetic children low by feeding them the bare minimum needed to survive. This could see a prognosis of months extended to years. These young patients weren’t exactly living, but they were alive.
In the spring of 1919, Gossett went into this starvation clinic. She’d have been constantly cold and hungry. Emaciated, unable to move or grow. At its lowest, her weight dropped to 20kg. Three years later, Gossett was lingering on death’s threshold but, crucially, hadn’t crossed to the other side.
