Frederick Banting

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Dr. Sir Frederick Grant Banting
Born	November 14, 1891(1891-11-14) Alliston, Ontario, Canada
Died	February 21, 1941 (aged 49)
Residence	Canada
Fields	Medical scientist
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Known for	Co-discover of insulin
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1923), Order of the British Empire
Religious stance	United Church of Canada

Sir Frederick Grant Banting, KBE, MC, MD, FRSC (November 14, 1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian medical scientist, doctor and Nobel laureate noted as one of the co-discovers of insulin.

Banting was born in Alliston, Ontario, Canada. After studying medicine at the University of Toronto and graduating in 1916, he served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps during World War I. After the war, he returned to Canada and between 1919 and 1920 completed his training as an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. From 1920 until 1921 he did part-time teaching in orthopaedics at the University of Western Ontario at London, Ontario, Canada, besides his general practice. Dissatisfied with his practice and fascinated by his idea, Banting left London and moved to Toronto. There, on 17 May 1921 he began his research at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of professor John Macleod. He was assigned a single assistant to help him, the young graduate student Charles Best.

During a winter of intense work, Banting tested his idea, performing operations on dogs to tie up their pancreatic ducts, which resulted in a partial atrophy of the pancreas. The pancreas would be then removed some weeks later, with the hope that it would then contain a high concentration of uncontaminated secretion of the pancreas.

After some months of work, it appeared to Banting that his method was working, and that he could keep dogs with diabetes alive with his extract. He enthusiastically reported his findings to Macleod, who had been away on his summer holidays during this time. Some people said that Banting's experiments were crude and did not prove the validity of his thinking, which was not physiologically sound in any case. However, the results encouraged further intensive work in the fall, with direct participation by Macleod and the chemist James Collip. The efforts of the team in 1921-1922 culminated in developing the ability to obtain a useful extract, named insulin.

This was hailed as one of the most significant advances in medicine at the time. Insulin was not only discovered, but put into mass production in a matter of months. Hence, almost immediately it began to extend the lives of millions of people worldwide who suffered from the endocrine disease diabetes mellitus that could not be treated and had a very poor prognosis. People who suffered from problems with fat and protein metabolism, leading to blindness and then death only had a short time after the onset of the illness. Leonard Thompson was the first person to be administered.

In 1923 Banting and Macleod received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Banting shared the award money with Best. The Canadian government gave him a lifetime to work on his research. In 1934 King George V bestowed a knighthood on him, making him Sir Frederick Banting.

Frederick Grant Banting was born on November 14, 1891, at Alliston, Ont., Canada. He was the youngest of five children of William Thompson Banting and Margaret Grant. Educated at the Public and High Schools at Alliston, he later went to the University of Toronto to study divinity, but soon transferred to the study of medicine. In 1916 he took his M.B. degree and at once joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps, and served, during the First World War, in France. In 1918 he was wounded at the battle of Cambrai and in 1919 he was awarded the Military Cross for heroism under fire.

When the war ended in 1919, Banting returned to Canada and was for a short time a medical practitioner at London, Ontario. He studied orthopaedic medicine and was, during the year 1919-1920, Resident Surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. From 1920 until 1921 he did part-time teaching in orthopaedics at the University of Western Ontario at London, Canada, besides his general practice, and from 1921 until 1922 he was Lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto. In 1922 he was awarded his M.D. degree, together with a gold medal.

Earlier, however, Banting had become deeply interested in diabetes. The work of Naunyn, Minkowski, Opie, Schafer, and others had indicated that diabetes was caused by lack of a protein hormone secreted by the islands of Langerhans in the pancreas. To this hormone Schafer had given the name insulin, and it was supposed that insulin controls the metabolism of sugar, so that lack of it results in the accumulation of sugar in the blood and the excretion of the excess of sugar in the urine. Attempts to supply the missing insulin by feeding patients with fresh pancreas, or extracts of it, had failed, presumably because the protein insulin in these had been destroyed by the proteolytic enzyme of the pancreas. The problem, therefore, was how to extract insulin from the pancreas before it had been thus destroyed.

While he was considering this problem, Banting read in a medical journal an article by Moses Baron, which pointed out that, when the pancreatic duct was experimentally closed by ligatures, the cells of the pancreas which secrete trypsin degenerate, but that the islands of Langerhans remain intact. This suggested to Banting the idea that ligation of the pancreatic duct would, by destroying the cells which secrete trypsin, avoid the destruction of the insulin, so that, after sufficient time had been allowed for the degeneration of the trypsin-secreting cells, insulin might be extracted from the intact islands of Langerhans.

Determined to investigate this possibility, Banting discussed it with various people, among whom was J.J.R. Macleod, Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto, and Macleod gave him facilities for experimental work upon it. Dr. Charles Best, then a medical student, was appointed as Banting's assistant, and together, Banting and Best started the work which was to lead to the discovery of insulin.

In 1922 Banting had been appointed Senior Demonstrator in Medicine at the University of Toronto, and in 1923 he was elected to the Banting and Best Chair of Medical Research, which had been endowed by the Legislature of the Province of Ontario. He was also appointed Honorary Consulting Physician to the Toronto General Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children, and the Toronto Western Hospital. In the Banting and Best Institute, Banting dealt with the problems of silicosis, cancer, the mechanism of drowning and how to counteract it. During the Second World War he became greatly interested in problems connected with flying (such as blackout).

In addition to his medical degree, Banting also obtained, in 1923, the LL.D. degree (Queens) and the D.Sc. degree (Toronto). Prior to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1923, which he shared with Macleod, he received the Reeve Prize of the University of Toronto (1922). In 1923, the Canadian Parliament granted him a Life Annuity of $7,500. In 1928 Banting gave the Cameron Lecture in Edinburgh. He was appointed member of numerous medical academies and societies in his country and abroad, including the British and American Physiological Societies, and the American Pharmacological Society. He was knighted in 1934.

As a keen painter, Banting once took part of a painting expedition above the Arctic Circle, sponsored by the Government.

Banting married Marion Robertson in 1924; they had one child, William (b. 1928). This marriage ended in a divorce in 1932, and in 1937 Banting married Henrietta Ball.

When the Second World War broke out, he served as a liaison officer between the British and North American medical services and, while thus engaged, he was, in February 1941, killed in an air disaster in Newfoundland.

From Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965

This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Frederick G. Banting died on February 21, 1941.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1923

[edit] Banting's Legacy

An oil painting of Sir Frederick Banting in 1925 by Tibor Polya, now in the possession of the National Portrait Gallery of Canada

Banting's name is immortalised in the yearly Banting Lectures, given by an expert in diabetes and by the creation of Banting Memorial High School in Alliston, ON; Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School in London, ON; Sir Frederick Banting Alternative Program Site in Ottawa, ON; and École Banting Middle School in Coquitlam, BC. The Banting Interpretation Centre in Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador is a museum named after him which focuses on the circumstances surrounding the 1941 plane crash which claimed his life. The Banting crater on the Moon is also named after him.

In 1994 Frederick Banting was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. In 2004, he was nominated as one of the top 10 "Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. When the final votes were counted, Banting finished fourth behind Tommy Douglas, Terry Fox and Pierre Trudeau.

Ironically, during the voting for "Greatest Canadians" in late 2003, controversy rose over the future use of the Banting family farm in New Tecumseth which had been left to the Ontario Historical Society by Banting's late nephew, Edward, in 1998. The dispute centred around the future use of the 40 ha (100 acre) property and its buildings. In a year-long negotiation, assisted by a provincially-appointed facilitator, the Town of New Tecumseth offered $1 million to the OHS. The town intended to turn the property over to the Sir Frederick Banting Legacy Foundation for preservation of the property and buildings, and the Legacy Foundation planned to erect a Camp for Diabetic Youths. The day after the November 22, 2006 deadline for the OHS to sign the agreement, the OHS announced that it had sold the property for housing development to Solmar Development for more than 2 million. Solmar reported in the press that their deal with the OHS had been arranged five months earlier. The Town of New Tecumseth announced it would designate the property under the Ontario Heritage Act. This would prevent its commercial development and obligate the owner to maintain it properly. OHS objected. The Ontario Conservation Review Board heard arguments for and against designation in September, 2007 and recommended designation of the entire 100-acre property in October. The Town officially passed the designation by-law on November 12, 2007.

In January, 2007, cross-Canada survey by the CBC to identify the 10 Greatest Canadian Inventions, Insulin topped the list in first place.

A painting of his called St. Tîte des Cap sold for $30,000 (cdn) including buyer's premium at a Canadian Art auction in Toronto^[1].

Banting was distantly related to Standard Oil co-founder, and 'Father of Florida', Henry Morrison Flagler. They were 3rd cousins 3 times removed. He was also relative to William Banting, the discoverer of the first effective low-carbohydrate diet used in weight control.

[edit] Bibliography

• The Discovery of Insulin by Michael Bliss, University of Chicago Press, 1982, ISBN 0-226-05897-2.
• Banting as an Artist by A.Y. Jackson, Ryerson Press, 1943.
• Discoverer of Insulin - Dr. Frederick G. Banting by I.E. Levine, New York: Julian Messner, 1962.
• Frederick Banting by Margaret Mason Shaw, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1976, ISBN 0-889-02229-1.
• Sir Frederick Banting by Lloyd Stevenson, Ryerson Press, 1946.
• Banting's miracle; the story of the discoverer of insulin by Seale Harris, Lippincott, 1946.
• Elixir by Eric Walters, Puffin Canada, 2005, ISBN 0-143-01641-5.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Banting Digital Library
• Discovery of Insulin
• Banting House National Historic Site
• CBC Greatest Canadians - Frederick Banting
• News Release About Sir Frederick Banting's Memorial Cross
• Lighting of the Flame of Hope at the Banting House National Historic Site in 1989
• Banting Lecture
• Background about the controversy about future use of the Banting homestead
• Ontario Plaques - The Discovery of Insulin
• CBC Digital Archives - Banting, Best, Macleod, Collip: Chasing a Cure for Diabetes
• Famous Canadian Physicians: Sir Frederick Banting at Library and Archives Canada
• This is for GCSE students