Elizabeth Hughes Gossett

Elizabeth Evans Hughes Gossett (August 19, 1907 – April 21, 1981), the daughter of statesman Charles Evans Hughes, was the first American, and one of the first people in the world, treated with insulin for type 1 diabetes. She received over 42,000 insulin shots over her lifetime.

Early life Elizabeth Evans 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.

Elizabeth developed diabetes in 1918 at age 11. At the time, the life expectancy of a Type 1 diabetic without treatment was usually no more than a few months. Since it was unable to metabolize sugars, the diabetic body would instead begin to burn fats. The dependence on fat would eventually lead to acidosis, followed by coma and death. The only known treatment was a low-carbohydrate low-calorie diet at a level that the patient could tolerate without showing sugar in the urine. If the diet was carefully observed, diabetics could expect to live for a couple of years before eventually succumbing to starvation, organ damage, or an infectious disease in their malnourished state.

In spring 1919, Elizabeth Hughes was brought to Dr. Frederick Madison Allen at his special clinic, the Physiatric Institute in Morristown, New Jersey. Allen put her on a strict diet and continued to monitor her condition over the next three years while she lived at home with a private nurse. She was and when she developed diabetes. Under diets that averaged 800 calories per day, her weight fell to by August 1922.

Adult life Elizabeth returned to school in 1923 and graduated from Barnard College in 1929. In 1930 she married William T. Gossett, a lawyer who later served as the president of the American Bar Association (1968-69) 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.

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.

Gossett died of a heart attack on April 21, 1981, at the age of 73.

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.