Designing for Diabetes: Objects, Practices, and Marketing of Diabetic Self-Monitoring Apparatus in the Second Half of the 20th Century

This paper traces the development and diversification of apparatus for monitoring and tracking blood sugar levels for diabetes. With the discovery and introduction of insulin in the 1920s, juvenile diabetes went from a certain death sentence to a manageable chronic disease, but one that required constant monitoring. Expertise and responsibility for monitoring began to shift early from medical professional to diabetic patient, and from the late 1930s, simplified urine sugar test kits enabled diabetics to self monitor and track their daily sugar levels. Diabetes management changed radically in the 1980s, with the development of simple, relatively affordable apparatus for monitoring blood sugar levels directly and in real time. This coincided with the beginning of a rapid rise in diabetes rates in Western countries, driven largely by increasing rates of type II, or adult-onset diabetes. This paper will show how the glucose meter systems that were designed and marketed in the final decades of the 20th century embody assumptions about diabetic individuals and their bodies, but also how the changing demographics of glucose metre users led designers to modify their apparatus to adapt them to various lifestyle needs, preferences, and skills capacities. Analysing key apparatus and equipment, this paper explores their design and surrounding practices and what they reveal about intersections between the demands, constraints, and co-constitution of users and apparatus.