Sir Frederick Banting conceived of the experiment that led to the discovery of insulin, the pancreatic substance that regulates blood sugar levels in diabetics. He carried out the experiment in collaboration with charles herbert best and James Bertram Collip, under the supervision of John James Rickard Macleod, with whom he shared the 1923 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. The discovery of insulin revolutionized the lives of diabetics, extending their life expectancy and improving their quality of life significantly.
Frederick Grant Banting was born on November 14, 1891, near Alliston, Ontario. He was the youngest of five children born to Margaret Grant and William Thompson Banting, a farmer. In 1911, Banting entered the University of Toronto’s Victoria College to study theology for the Methodist ministry. Within a year, however, he shifted his major to medicine, and in preparation for World War I, the university speeded up his course of study to grant him his medical degree in December 1916, whereupon he departed for England to serve as a lieutenant in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. He was assigned to the orthopedic hospital at Rams-gate, where he performed surgery under Clarence L. Starr.
In the Battle of Cambria near Haynscourt in France in September 1918, Banting caught shrapnel in his right forearm, though he continued to attend to wounded soldiers despite his own wound. The next year, he received the Military Cross from the British government for heroism under fire.
Upon his return to Canada after the war, Banting interned as the resident surgeon under Starr at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. In 1920, he established a private surgical practice in London, Ontario, where his fiancee, Edith Roach, was teaching (though the couple never married). To supplement the meager income from his practice (only one patient visited in his first month), Banting taught orthopedics as a demonstrator at the University of Western Ontario for two dollars an hour.
On the evening of October 30, 1920, preparing for a lecture on carbohydrate metabolism in the pancreas, Banting read an article by Moses Baron entitled "The Relation of the Islets of Langerhans to Diabetes, With Special Reference to Cases of Pancreatic Lithiasis" in the November issue of the journal Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics. The article discussed the case of a blocked pancreas that had shriveled up, all except for the islets of Langerhans, which Banting suspected held the key to unlocking the mystery of diabetes. Unable to sleep thereafter, Banting got up at 2:00 a.m. to write in his journal: "Diabetus [sic] Ligate pancreatic ducts of dogs. Keep dogs alive till acini degenerate leaving Islets. Try to isolate the internal secretion of these to relieve glycosurea [sic]." Banting thus conceived of the experiment that would eventually lead to the isolation of insulin, the chemical mechanism for controlling diabetes.
Later that morning, Banting discussed his experiment idea with the neurophysiologist Frederick R. Miller, head of the laboratory he was working in, who recommended that Banting contact the University of Toronto’s J. J. R. Macleod, an expert in carbohydrate metabolism. At their early-November meeting, Macleod reacted skeptically at first, assuming that Banting would follow in the footsteps of numerous other scientists who had researched the role of the pancreas in diabetes fruitlessly, until Banting revealed his intention of preparing a pancreatic extract, an approach Macleod met with enthusiasm. Macleod promised Banting 10 dogs, an assistant versed in blood and urine analysis techniques, and eight weeks in his laboratory, starting in mid-May 1921.
Macleod supervised Banting’s experiment for a month before taking off for the summer to his home in Scotland. In his absence, Banting and his assistant, Charles Best, a 22-year-old medical student who had only just received his bachelor’s degree in physiology and biochemistry, proceeded with the experiment. They met failure at first, as the catgut sutures tying off the pancreatic ducts disintegrated, prompting them to substitute silk suturing. On July 30, 1921, they removed the withered pancreas, chopped it and ground it in a cold mortar, mixed it with saltwater, filtered it through cheesecloth, then injected it into the diabetic dog, whose blood-sugar level decreased from 0.2 to 0.12—Banting and Best cautiously considered their extract, which they called "isletin," a success.
Banting and Best refined their extract by using the pancreases of fetal calves, which contained higher concentrations of islet cells. They were joined by biochemist J. B. Collip, who purified their extract chemically. When Macleod returned from his vacation, Banting (who had abandoned his surgical practice and teaching to pursue this experiment) requested a salary, which Macleod grudgingly granted him by appointing him as a senior demonstrator at the University of Toronto. Banting presented a preliminary report of his and Best’s findings to the Physiological Journal Club in Toronto on November 14, 1921.
In January 1922, Banting and Best acted as human guinea pigs, injecting themselves with insulin, the name they adopted for the extract. Finding no adverse side effects, they injected the extract into 14-year-old diabetic Leonard Thompson, who was hovering on the brink of death. The boy’s blood-sugar level decreased, and it dropped even further with the administration of a purer, more potent extract 12 days later (he lived another 13 years, eventually dying not of diabetes but of pneumonia contracted after a motorcycle accident). The scientists reported their success in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, and the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company began production and distribution of insulin, the new diabetes-regulating drug. Insulin radically transformed the lives of diabetics, allowing them to regulate their blood-sugar levels and lead comparatively normal lives.
The granting of the 1923 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to Macleod and Banting infuriated the latter, who considered the former a mere overseer, while the overlooked Best had collaborated as a primary experimenter. Banting therefore split his prize money with Best, while Macleod split his with Collip. The Canadian Parliament also granted Banting an annuity of $7,500 from 1923 on. Also that year, the University of Toronto appointed Banting to an endowed chair named after him—the Banting and Best Chair of Medical Research. The next year, Banting married Marion Robertson, who bore him one son, William, in 1928. After a long separation, the couple divorced in 1932, and in 1937, Banting married Henrietta Ball, a technician in the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research, which he headed for the entirety of his career.
In 1934, King George V, himself a diabetic, knighted Banting as a baronet of the British Empire. At the outbreak of World War II, Banting volunteered as a medical consultant acting as a liaison between England and Canada. He died on February 21, 1941, when his transatlantic flight crashed in Newfoundland. Banting’s memory survived, however, as diabetics the world over pay tribute to him as the discoverer of insulin, the miracle drug that regulates their lives. The Canadian Diabetes Foundation bought the house in London, Ontario, where he conceived of his famous experiment, establishing the Banting Museum in it. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth lit the Flame of Hope in the square beside the museum, which will remain burning until Banting’s work is extended with the discovery of a cure for diabetes.
