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Frederick Banting and Charles Best Facts & Worksheets

Frederick Banting and Charles Best were credited as the discoverers of insulin under the directorship of John Macleod at the University of Toronto.

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Frederick Banting and Charles Best were credited as the discoverers of insulin under the directorship of John Macleod at the University of Toronto. This recognition had to be fought by Best as the Nobel Prize committee omitted him as a major participant in the discovery. Banting fought beside Best and announced that he would split his winnings with Best to recognize him as his real partner in their study.

See the fact file below for more information on the Frederick Banting and Charles Best or alternatively, you can download our 26-page Frederick Banting and Charles Best worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

BANTING’S  PERSONAL FACTS AND EARLY LIFE

  • Frederick Banting was born on November 14, 1891, near Alliston, Ontario. He was the youngest of five children of Methodist farmers,  William Thompson Banting and Margaret Grant.
  • He attended Victoria College in 1910 in the General Arts program. However, he failed in his first year. He petitioned to be part of the medical program and was accepted. He started a five-year program at the medical school at the University of Toronto in September 1912, but it was fast-tracked because of World War 1.
  • He finished his entire fifth year during the summer of 1916 and was sent off to war immediately.

BANTING PERSONAL FACTS

  • Banting was assigned to the Canadian Army Medical Corps, serving as the battalion medical officer. He returned to Toronto after three years as he was wounded in the arm by shrapnel.
  • He completed his surgical training and became a resident orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital of Sick Children in Toronto from 1919–1920. He left the residency and set up a medical practice in London, Ontario. He also took a position as a demonstrator in the local medical school.

BANTING’S IDEA

  • On October 30, 1920, he was about to deliver a lecture about the function of the pancreas, when he stopped by the University Library and read an article titled “The Relation of the Islets of Langerhans to Diabetes, with Special Reference to Cases of Pancreatic Lithiasis.”
  • After reading the article, he had an idea for a preliminary experiment that involved the relationship between pancreatic secretions and diabetes.
  • On November 7, as advised by a colleague, he brought his idea to John James Rickard Macleod, a Scottish physiologist at the University of Toronto. The latter had published a series of papers on glycosuria or the presence of sugar in the urine. He was doubtful of Banting’s idea as he was familiar with the subject’s literature and believed that the nervous system had a significant role in controlling blood glucose concentration.
  • Additionally, Banting was an orthopedic surgeon with no experience in diabetic studies.
  • Nevertheless, after Banting’s persistence, Macleod lent him a laboratory space while he was on vacation and provided experimental animals and a lab assistant, Charles Herbert Best.

BEST’S PERSONAL FACTS AND EARLY LIFE

  • Charles Herbert Best was born on February 27, 1899, in West Pembroke, Maine. His father, Herbert Huestis Best, was a Canadian-born physician from Nova Scotia.
  • Best spent his childhood in Pembroke before he moved to Toronto to study medicine in 1915.
  • His decision to become a doctor and his research interest was motivated by his Aunt Anna, who died from diabetes.
  • Unlike Banting, Best’s first year at the university was interrupted due to World War 1. He served as an infantry soldier and reached the level of acting Sergeant Major. He eventually finished his degree in biochemistry and physiology and was hired as a research assistant by his former teacher, Macleod.
  • He was only 22 years old when Macleod assigned him as the lab assistant of a 29-year-old Dr. Frederick Banting. Banting and Best started their experiment in May 1921.

EXPERIMENT BEGINS

  • It was lucky for Banting and Best that other scientists in Germany and Hungary, who were very close to finding pure insulin, lacked the proper funding to continue their research due to World War 1.
  • Banting conducted an experimental combination of duct ligation and pancreatectomies. Best handled the chemical testing, measuring blood and urine sugar, and assisted in any other ways in the experiments on experimental dogs.
  • Duct ligation involved tying off the pancreatic duct to the small intestines to weaken the acini cells that produced digestive secretions, leaving behind only the cells of the Islets of Langerhans. The duct-ligated dog did not develop diabetes.
  • On the other hand, they removed the pancreas of another dog to induce diabetes, and after the pancreatectomy was performed it showed signs of glycosuria.
  • Following his idea last October 30, Banting extracted and isolated all the secretions produced after the atrophy of the acini cells from the duct-ligated dog. Sadly, the dogs did not live long enough to carry out more tests.
  • The summer proved to be challenging after many failures and setbacks. As fall began, the team reported keeping an extremely diabetic dog alive through injections of an extract made from the duct-ligated pancreas. They prepared it in saline, as Macleod suggested. It drastically lowered the blood sugar levels of the experimental diabetic dog.

ANIMOSITY BEGINS

  • In December 1921, Banting, together with Macleod and Best, presented their findings at a conference of the American Physiological Society at Yale University. Banting was not a public speaker, unlike Macleod.
  • Due to his nervousness, he presented his findings poorly and invited questions and criticisms. As the chair of the session, Macleod tried to save Banting and joined in the discussion. However, Banting saw Macleod’s act as an attempt to take the credit that belonged to him and Best. Their relationship started to deteriorate after this incident.

COLLIP ENTERS

  • The next natural step in their experiment was finding a way to get enough pancreas extract to continue. Macleod, Banting, and Best developed alcohol extraction, which they found to be the most efficient method.
  • They turned the whole laboratory to insulin research, and Macleod decided to bring in James Collip to help purify the extract for clinical testing in humans.
  • On November 15, they realized that the supply extract from one duct-ligated dog was not enough. The fact that Banting was born and raised on a farm proved to be an advantage.
  • From further reading, they concluded newborn animals are more likely to have little or no active acinar tissues and that the external secretion was absent or weak as there was no need for them to digest until after birth. The extracts from the pancreas of fetal calves at the abattoirs could maintain an adequate supply for their experiment.
  • On January 11, 1922, before Collip successfully purified the extract, Banting and Best administered their pancreatic extracts prematurely to a fourteen-year-old boy, Leonard Thompson, who suffered a severe allergic reaction.
  • Several days later, Collip used the purified pancreatic extract that made the boy fully recovered and used it in clinical trials. Collip, Banting, and Best shared the patent for insulin and sold it to the University of Toronto for one dollar.
  • On May 3, 1922, on behalf of the group, during the conference of the Association of American Physicians, Macleod announced to the international medical community that they had discovered “insulin” as an antidiabetic agent.

NOBEL PRIZE CONTROVERSY

  • The Nobel Prize committee decided to award Banting and Macleod. It caused further animosity between Banting and Macleod. Banting immediately announced that he would split his winnings with Best, and as a reaction to Banting’s gesture, he declared that he, too, would share his award with Collip.
  • Insulin had been in commercial production at the end of 1923 by Eli Lilly and Company laboratories in Indianapolis. It allowed diabetic patients to resume eating carbohydrates, although in moderation, and recover from comas.

LATER LIFE

  • Banting died in February 1941 due to the injuries he got after the crash of an aircraft where he was a passenger.
  • Best continued to campaign that the actual discoverer of insulin was Banting and him. The general medical community eventually accepted his claim.
  • In 1972, the Nobel Foundation officially acknowledged that excluding Best in the award was a mistake.
  • Best died on March 31, 1978, in Toronto, Ontario, and was interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, not far from Sir Frederick Banting.

Frederick Banting and Charles Best Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Frederick Banting and Charles Best across 26 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Frederick Banting and Charles Best worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Frederick Banting and Charles Best who were credited as the discoverers of insulin under the directorship of John Macleod at the University of Toronto. This recognition had to be fought by Best as the Nobel Prize committee omitted him as a major participant in the discovery. Banting fought beside Best and announced that he would split his winnings with Best to recognize him as his real partner in their study.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Frederick Banting and Charles Best Facts
  • The Insulin Inventors
  • Problems before the Discovery
  • The Insulin Timeline
  • The Doctors’ Research
  • After the Nobel
  • Macleod and Banting
  • Fantastic Four
  • The Insulin Experiments
  • Best’s Advice
  • Animal or Human Welfare?

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