06/15/2024
In 1922, a group of scientists went to the Toronto General hospital where diabetic children were kept in wards, often 50 or more at a time. Most of them were comatose and dying from diabetic keto-acidosis. Others were being treated by being placed on an extremely strict diet, which inevitably led to starvation.
These children were essentially in their death beds, awaiting what was at that time, certain death. The scientists moved swiftly and proceeded to inject the children with a new purified extract of insulin.
As they began to inject the last comatose child, the first one to be injected began to wake up. Then one by one, all the children awoke from their diabetic comas. A room that was full of death and gloom, suddenly became a place of joy and hope.
In the early 1920s, Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin under John Macleod at the University of Toronto. With the help of James Collip, insulin was purified, making it available to successfully treat diabetes. Both Banting and Macleod earned Nobel Prizes for their work in 1923.
In the same year, Banting, Collip, and Best decided to sell the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for $1. Banting famously went on to say, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”
