The Discovery of Insulin

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University of Chicago Press, May 15, 2007 - Health & Fitness - 304 pages
In a brilliant, definitive history of one of the most significant and controversial medical events of modern times, award-winning historian Michael Bliss brings to light a bizarre clash of scientific personalities. When F. G. Banting and J. J. R. Macleod won the 1923 Nobel Prize for discovering and isolating insulin, Banting immediately announced that he was dividing his share of the prize with his young associate, C. H. Best. Macleod divided his share with a fourth member of the team, J. B. Collip. For the next sixty years medical opinion was intensely divided over the allotment of credit for the discovery of insulin. In resolving this controversy, Bliss also offers a wealth of new detail on such subjects as the treatment of diabetes before insulin and the life-and-death struggle to manufacture insulin.

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Contents

Preface 20077
7
CHAPTER ONE A Long Prelude20
20
CHAPTER TWO Bantings Idea45
45
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

John William Michael Bliss was born in Leamington, Ontario, Canada on January 18, 1941. He graduated from the University of Toronto. He taught at the University of Toronto from 1968 until 2006. He was a historian of Canadian business and politics as well as medicine. He wrote 14 books during his lifetime including A Canadian Millionaire, The Discovery of Insulin, Banting: A Biography, William Osler: A Life in Medicine, and Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery. He was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2016. He died from complications of vasculitis, an inflammatory blood vessel disease, on May 18, 2017 at the age of 76.

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