Contents
Frederick Banting
Co-discovering insulin and helping turn diabetes from a frequently fatal disease into a treatable condition.
Pancreatic experiments · Insulin treatment
- Born
- 14 November 1891
- Birthplace
- Alliston, Ontario, Canada
- Died
- 21 February 1941
More people
Frederick Banting
Frederick Banting was a Canadian physician and researcher central to the Toronto insulin team. Charles Best, John Macleod and James Collip also played crucial roles. Banting and Macleod shared the 1923 medicine Nobel, while disputes over credit continued.
Early life
Farm childhood
Grew up near Alliston as the youngest of five children.
Medical education
Studied medicine at the University of Toronto and graduated during the First World War.
Career
- 1916–1919
Army medicine
Served as a medical officer in France and received the Military Cross.
- 1920–1922
Insulin research
Moved from clinical work in London, Ontario, into experiments at Toronto that led to insulin treatment.
- 1923
Research chair
Became head of a newly endowed medical-research chair at Toronto.
- 1939–1941
Wartime research
Investigated aviation medicine before dying in an aircraft crash in Newfoundland.
Contributions
Pancreatic experiments
Worked with Charles Best on extracts that lowered blood sugar in diabetic dogs.
Insulin treatment
The Toronto team developed a purified extract suitable for treating patients.
Nobel Prize
Shared the medicine prize with John Macleod and gave part of his prize money to Best.
Beyond medicine
Landscape painting
Painted Canadian landscapes and joined northern sketching trips.
Sharing credit
Macleod shared his prize money with James Collip, whose purification work was essential to the treatment’s success.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Institutional biography and career record ↗Photo: Louis Schmidt. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
