Frederick Grant Banting was born on November 14, 1891, near the town of Alliston, 40 miles outside of Toronto, Canada. His grandfather, John Banting, had emigrated from Ballyfrim in the north of Ireland during the Great Famine, before settling in rural Ontario. Fred was the youngest of six children born into a devout Methodist farming family. A tall young man and a keen sportsman, he was a distinctly average student and would suffer from poor spelling throughout his life. Nonetheless, he was a diligent and ambitious young man. Upon finishing school, his father gave him a small inheritance with a view to Fred establishing himself as a farmer. Instead, the aspiring university student used the gift ($1,500, a horse, harness and buggy) to fund his enrolment in an arts course in the University of Toronto.

Despite failing several subjects during his first two years, he was allowed to matriculate into medicine in 1912. Medical school places in Canadian universities were, evidently, somewhat easier to obtain at the time. The hours were long, the holidays short and the applicants low in number, but a steady girlfriend and the opportunity to drop his weaker subjects led to a gradual improvement in Banting’s grades once he began his medical training.

Canada joined the British side soon after the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 and Banting, in the first of many acts of patriotism, volunteered his services for his country. To speed up the training of doctors for the war effort, the university offered his fifth year as a summer course. Banting would later describe his medical training as “deficient” and would claim he only had five or six pages of notes from his final year of medical school. 

Banting, along with most of his graduating class, departed for the frontline in France on March 26, 1917. Perhaps fortunately, his stint there didn’t last long, as the young sergeant sustained a serious shrapnel injury and was evacuated back to Britain. Although short-lived, his initial refusal to leave his wounded comrades, despite being seriously injured himself, earned him a Military Cross for “exemplary gallantry” in the battlefield. The war ended and, aside from his Military Cross, Banting brought home a fondness for alcohol, a heavy cigarette addiction and a tendency to swear. He decided to establish a surgical practice in London, Ontario, and supplement his income with anatomy lectures at the local university. 

The discovery of insulin

On the evening of Sunday, October 3, 1920, Banting was preparing a tutorial on the pancreas when a thought occurred to him. Much was known about the ‘external’ secretions of the organ and their role in the digestion of food; however, little was known of its ‘internal’ secretions, except that upon removal of the pancreas animals (and humans) became unable to metabolise carbohydrates. This was invariably followed by an accumulation of sugar in their blood and urine, frequent urination, thirst and hunger (a diabetic state).

It was also known that the islets of Langerhans, glands within the pancreas, were probably the source of these mysterious internal secretions. Banting reasoned that if he could ligate these islets in healthy dogs and allow the rest of the pancreas to disintegrate, he could isolate the internal secretions and use them to treat the diabetic state in de-pancreatised dogs.

Banting took his idea to the Scottish professor of physiology at the University of Toronto, John James Richard Macleod. Although many researchers far more experienced than Banting had tried to isolate pancreas secretions to no avail, Macleod reasoned that the surgical skills Banting had acquired would be beneficial in carrying out the operations required on the experimental dogs. He granted Banting a laboratory for the summer and an assistant, a young PhD student called Charles Best.

Banting and Best began their laboratory work on May 17, 1921. They used many dogs during their experiments, even resorting to taking strays off the streets or buying them at sanctuaries. Unfortunately, many of these dogs would perish before any viable results were obtained. The young scientists made many mistakes, kept poor records of their results and often did not bother doing autopsies on the dead dogs.

Eventually, after several months of careless but diligent work, they managed to obtain a duct-ligated, shrivelled pancreas from a dog, grind it up and successfully filter the solution. They then injected it into a previously de-pancreatised dog which was beginning to exhibit the first sign of diabetes (a rising blood sugar level). The men rejoiced as the levels remained steady and did not rise until they stopped the course of injections. Banting was so confident in his findings that he had already tried the solution on himself, with no adverse effects.

On December 30, 1921, the team presented their results to the American Physiological Society conference at Yale University in a presentation entitled ‘The Beneficial Influences of Certain Pancreatic Extracts on Pancreatic Diabetes’. News of their discovery had already spread through the scientific community and beyond. Overwhelmed by the anticipation and magnitude of the occasion, a nervous Banting struggled through the presentation before Macleod took over and subsequently received the plaudits. Several years later, Banting would admit: “Every speech I have ever given has been preceded by hyperacidity (heartburn), diuresis (urination) and diaphoresis (sweating).” Meanwhile, the group had decided on a name for their extract based on its origin in the islets of Langerhans: insulin.

Among the first lucky recipients was a diabetic boy named Teddy Ryder who received his first injection just before his sixth birthday. Ryder would survive another 71 years and die peacefully in 1993, after many years of daily insulin doses.

News of insulin spread around North America rapidly and Banting became internationally recognised for the team’s discovery. The University of Toronto soon collaborated with Eli Lilly and Company to mass produce insulin. Around this time, Banting is thought to have been offered one million dollars by an American businessman for the rights to the hormone. In another act of patriotism, Banting decided to keep the treatment in Canada and charge his burgeoning patient population only standard consultation rates. 

In 1923, Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Banting was furious that Best had been overlooked and, at first, refused to accept the accolade. However, under pressure from the Canadian government, he accepted the award but shared his half of the $30,000 prize with Best. Throughout his career, Banting would strive to avoid taking undeserved credit and would often use his own money to fund equipment and assistants.

The post-insulin years

Disillusioned by the fame and controversy surrounding insulin, Banting used his new position as professor of research at the University of Toronto to focus on other areas of research. Between 1924 and 1936, he worked many long hours seeking to emulate his early success. However, his investigations into cancer, bacterial toxins and adrenal secretions yielded very few useful results. Perhaps his greatest role as professor of research was in encouraging other, younger scientists and stimulating their more creative brains by asking them to explain simple concepts that he had often failed to grasp. 

Frustrated by his poor research output, Banting pursued several other interests during these years. Becoming one of Canada’s best-known amateur artists, he took many trips into the Canadian wilderness to sketch landscapes. In 1927, he was a guest on a mission of exploration to the Arctic. Upon his return from this trip, he championed the rights of Eskimos and condemned their exploitation in the fur trade.

Despite the long, fruitless hours in the laboratory, he also found time to marry an x-ray technician, named Marion Robertson, in 1924, and to produce a son with her. However, the couple’s subsequent divorce in 1932, amid allegations of domestic violence and infidelity, rocked a conservative Canada. Although he was now a tainted man, Banting maintained his status as a national hero and was awarded a knighthood in 1934. In 1939, Banting would marry his researcher, Henrietta Bell, but this marriage would end under far more tragic circumstances. 

Death of a patriot

Banting toured Europe in 1933, when Mussolini was at the peak of his power and Hitler had just seized control of Germany. He returned to Canada convinced that war was imminent and that science would be an integral part of the impending conflict. Banting felt certain that Germany was investing heavily in means of biological warfare and he joined the Canadian National Research Council with the aim of pursuing the same path for his country.

His laboratory investigated antidotes to mustard gas and certain aspects of the fledgling field of aviation medicine. His patriotism fortified by the imminent war, Banting refused to take holidays, tested antidotes on himself, donated much of his earnings to the government’s war loan fund and was among the first to enlist when Canada joined the conflict in September 1939. It was this determination to return to the frontline that would, sadly, lead to his death.

Although Banting was initially ordered to stay at home and assist the war effort through his research, in February 1941 he was granted his wish to return to the frontline, more than 20 years after earning his Military Cross. Through his contacts in the military, he secured passage on board a Hudson bomber being flown across the Atlantic to Britain which took off from Gander on the evening of February 20, 1941. Shortly after take-off, the plane began experiencing difficulties and crashed in the remote wilderness of western Newfoundland. 

Following Banting’s death, his wife, Henrietta, enrolled in medical school and practised medicine until her death in 1976. Banting’s son, William, pursued a successful career in television with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A research building in the University of Toronto, several Canadian schools, a US library ship and a crater on the moon have all been named in honour of Sir Frederick Banting.