Frederick Banting

Frederick Grant Banting was born in 1891 on a farm near Alliston, Ontario, well outside Toronto — his Toronto connection begins with his education, at Victoria College, University of Toronto, where he switched from divinity to medicine in 1912. After service in the First World War, Banting had his famous late-night idea about pancreatic extracts in 1920 while running a small practice in London, Ontario — not in Toronto. The actual discovery happened somewhere else entirely.

The summer of 1921

In spring 1921, Banting brought his idea to Professor J.J.R. Macleod, head of physiology at the University of Toronto, who gave him unused lab space in the university's Medical Building, a stock of experimental dogs, and a student assistant, Charles Best. Their first surgery on a dog was performed May 17, 1921. Through a difficult summer of setbacks, Banting and Best — later joined by biochemist James Collip — succeeded by autumn in producing a pancreatic extract that lowered blood sugar in diabetic dogs, announcing the discovery of insulin in 1922.

Toronto General Hospital and burial

In 1922 Banting joined the diabetic clinic at Toronto General Hospital, where the extract was first tested on human patients, while Connaught Labs scaled up production. In 1923 Banting and Macleod received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; Banting controversially split his share of the prize money with Best. He was killed in a plane crash in Newfoundland in 1941, and was buried with military honours at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — The Discovery of Insulin
• Dictionary of Canadian Biography — Banting, Sir Frederick Grant