Articles
The interview with Charlie was extremely productive. Not only does
he have a wonderful memory but he also led me to the first patient
to use a blood glucose meter. Then he led me -- by a circuitous route
-- to the meter's inventor, Tom Clemens. He didn't know where Tom
was any more, but told me that his daughter, who happens to be the
First Lady of Nebraska (Stephanie Johans, the wife of the state's
governor), was a good friend of Tom's daughter Martina Clemens. Charlie
called Stephanie for me and got Martina's phone number, and she gave
me Tom's number.
Telephone Interview With Charles A. Suther
7857 Trotwood Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46256-4024
(317) 595-0798
September 16, 1999
Starting at the very beginning, Ames developed
and introduced in 1965 a product called Dextrostix®. These were paper
strips to which you added a drop of blood, timed it for 1 minute and
washed it off. They developed a blue color and you read that color
by comparing it to a color chart. It gave you an approximation of
the blood glucose level. People who did it on a regular basis frequently
got to read Dextrostix strips very well. But for most people because
of limited usage you could know if it was very high or very low but
in between it could be anything. Dextrostix were designed primarily
for doctor’s offices. Ames had been making urine strips and this was
their first excursion into blood glucose strips.
Then in 1970 realizing that the Dextrostix were difficult
to use, one of the scientists developed a reflectance meter. That
is a meter that could read reflected light.
Who was that? Anton H. Clemens. He developed
the first blood glucose meter. And it was simply a light meter that
read reflected light. The same Dextrostix were used and the concept
was that you play a beam of light on that blue color and the darker
the blue the less light would be reflected.
I guess that it didn’t give you a number? Oh,
yes, it did. That reflected light was sent to a photoelectric cell,
which in turn gave a read out, which in this case was a meter with
a swinging needle. Since the instrument was more able to read the
minor changes in the reflection of the darkness and lightness of the
shade of blue it added a certain degree of accuracy. In other words,
Dextrostix had been out there for 5 years and now suddenly somebody
developed an instrument to read them.
Who developed the Dextrostix? Almost all the
stuff developed at Ames Company -- and Ames at that time was a division
of Miles Laboratories, the Alka-Seltzer people. Ames disappeared,
became Miles Diagnostics, and then Bayer bought Miles. So Ames Company,
or what’s left of it, is now part of Bayer.
So their Glucometers have the oldest history?
That’s right. They have the history of being the first, the oldest.
What individual was responsible for the Dextrostix?
Ernie Adams was the guy at the workbench who invented the Dextrostix.
It would be interesting to see whose name the patent is in. [The Dextrostix
patent, No. 3,092,465, issued June 4, 1963, is in the name Adams et
al.]
Were you there at Ames? Yes, I was there just
after Dextrostix were introduced. I started as a sales rep and was
later the product manager and still later market manager responsible
for diabetes products, including Dextrostix and other diabetes products.
That was from 1968-1976 or around there, and I introduced that first
reflectance meter.
By the way -- they will miss it in a trivia quiz; the
name of the first meter was A.R.M., the Ames Reflectance Meter. Because
it was a pioneer kind of instrument there were a lot of drawbacks
and problems with it. [Anton Clemens writes, "The ‘problems’
with the ARM was the lead acid battery. We should remember that rechargeable
batteries, at that time, had not evolved to the higher tech standards
we now take for granted."] Next to the A.R.M. suddenly the
Japanese developed an instrument. They called it the Eyetone. The
Japanese developed it and brought it to the United States, showed
it to Ames Company, and at that point they entered into a marketing
agreement. Ames introduced the Eyetone but they didn’t develop it.
What Japanese company was that? I believe --
I’m sure -- it was Kyoto Daiichi.
Was the Eyetone the most important step? It
was in terms of popularity. First of all several things happened.
The original A.R.M. was very expensive. It was around $495. It was
designed for the doctor’s office. It was never originally intended
for home use. And it was heavy, bulky. The Eyetone was smaller --
not by a lot -- more lightweight, easier to operate, and most importantly
it was less expensive.
What year was the Eyetone introduced? About
1972. It came right on the heals [of the A.R.M.]. It showed up very
quickly, whereas it took Ames years to develop the first one. But
they didn’t violate any patents in doing it (and they sold distribution
rights to Ames).
That was a swinging needle too.
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