Sentence:  In Chicago , some time ago , Mr. H. , age 27 , a diabetic since he <WSD>was</WSD> six , stopped using insulin because he had bought a `` magic spike '' - a glass tube about the size of a pencil filled with barium chloride worth a small fraction of a cent - sold by the Vrilium Company of Chicago for $ 306 as a cure-all . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)