Issues

"Seeing my grandfather’s success, the U of T board of governors ultimately came round, endorsing his idea. On May 1, 1914, the University of Toronto Anti-Toxin Laboratories were formed. The notion was that a full range of preventive medicines be available free to all Canadians - “within reach of everyone,” in Gerry’s phrase -- regardless of class or income. Understandably, general practitioners, druggists and commercial drug manufacturers resisted the idea; they depended on paying patients for their livelihoods."

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Meanwhile, Dr. Banting’s mentor and lab director, Dr. John J. R. Macleod, was summering in Scotland.

Dr. Banting never forgave Dr. Macleod for arriving back in the autumn, rested and refreshed, and taking over. His bitter hostility lasted years, long after the Nobel Prize ceremony in 1923 which Dr. Banting refused to attend, for although he shared the physiology prize with Dr. Macleod, he would not share a podium.

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In the spring of 1921, Banting traveled to Toronto to explain his idea to J.J.R. Macleod, who was Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto, and asked Macleod if he could use his lab space to test the idea. Macleod was initially skeptical, but eventually agreed to let Banting use his lab space while he was on holiday for the summer. He also supplied Banting with ten dogs on which to experiment, and two medical students, Charles Best and Clark Noble, to use as lab assistants, before leaving for Scotland. Since Banting required only one lab assistant, Best and Noble flipped a coin to see which would assist Banting for the first half of the summer. Best won the coin toss, and took the first shift as Banting's assistant.

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On July 27, 1921, at the University of Toronto, Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and his young research assistant Charles Best successfully isolate insulin--a hormone they believe could treat diabetes--for the first time.

Within a year, the first human sufferers of diabetes were receiving insulin treatments, and countless lives were saved from what was previously regarded as a fatal disease.

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