Thick Brown Muck

TL;DR: In this paper , the authors show that traditional accounts that portray Banting and Best as having made a miraculous discovery are heavily romanticized, and they also trace Banting's deteriorating relationship with Macleod and show why, when Banting finally received the 1923 Nobel Prize for his work, he was furious.

Abstract: Abstract Canadian scientist Frederick Banting believed that he could succeed where all other researchers had failed in isolating the anti-diabetic hormone made by the pancreas. During the summer of 1921, he and student Charles Best worked at the University of Toronto in the laboratory of Prof. J. J. R. Macleod. Together they prepared pancreatic extracts by a variety of methods and tested them on diabetic dogs. Using archival sources, this chapter shows that traditional accounts that portray Banting and Best as having made a miraculous discovery are heavily romanticized. Their first test of their extract on a human patient was not considered success; it was only thanks to their colleague James Collip that an extract was prepared that could be used clinically. This chapter also traces Banting’s deteriorating relationship with Macleod and shows why, when Banting finally received the 1923 Nobel Prize for his work, he was furious.