Frederick Banting

Who Sold the Patent for a Dollar · Surgeon & Physiologist · 1891–1941

The country surgeon whose idea produced insulin in a single summer, turning diabetes from a death sentence for children into a condition that could be lived with — and who sold the patent for one dollar.

Who was Banting?

Frederick Banting was born on an Ontario farm in 1891, served as a battalion medical officer in France and was wounded at Cambrai. Practising and lecturing in London, Ontario, he read an article one night in October 1920 about a case in which a blocked pancreatic duct had caused the digestive part of the gland to waste away, and woke with an idea: tie off the ducts of a dog's pancreas, wait for that part to degenerate, and extract whatever remained. J. J. R. Macleod at Toronto gave him laboratory space, ten dogs and a student assistant, Charles Best, for the summer of 1921. The extract kept a depancreatised dog alive. The biochemist James Collip then purified it to the point where it could be given to a human being, and in January 1922 it was injected into Leonard Thompson, a fourteen-year-old dying in the Toronto General Hospital. He recovered. The patent was sold to the University of Toronto for a single dollar so that no company could control the supply. Banting shared the 1923 Nobel Prize with Macleod, was enraged that Best had been omitted, and divided his prize money with him. He died in 1941 when his aircraft crashed in Newfoundland while he was on wartime service.

Major achievements

• Conceived the experiment that led to the isolation of insulin
• With Charles Best, produced an extract that kept a depancreatised dog alive (1921)
• Saw the first patient, Leonard Thompson, treated successfully in January 1922
• Sold the patent to the University of Toronto for one dollar
• Shared the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first Canadian laureate

Life in brief

• 1891 — Born near Alliston, Ontario: A farming family; trained in medicine at Toronto.
• 1918 — Wounded at Cambrai: Awarded the Military Cross for treating men under fire.
• 1920 — The note at two in the morning: Ligate the ducts; extract what remains of the gland.
• 1921 — The summer in Macleod's laboratory: With Charles Best, ten dogs and no salary.
• 1922 — Leonard Thompson: A boy of fourteen becomes the first person saved by insulin.
• 1923 — Nobel Prize: Shared with Macleod; Banting splits his share with Best.
• 1934 — Knighted: By then the head of a research institute in Toronto.
• 1941 — Dies in a crash: His aircraft comes down in Newfoundland on war service.

Explore the life of Banting — five chapters

1. A Farm, a War and a Failing Practice — The least likely person to make a discovery
2. The Note at Two in the Morning — Twenty-five words, and an idea that was partly wrong
3. The Summer of 1921 — Ten dogs, no salary, and a hot laboratory
4. Leonard Thompson — January 1922, and a ward of dying children
5. The Prize and the Quarrel — A Nobel divided in anger, and a crash in Newfoundland

Read the five-chapter life of Frederick Banting →

Where Banting appears in your course

Frederick Banting has a genuine claim on 2 lessons of the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE science course built into Incandio:

• The Hormones — Sources, Roles and Effects — Biology: Starling named the class and Bernard found the store, but insulin was still only an inference until Banting acted on a note he wrote at two in the morning in 1920: tie off the pancreatic ducts, let the digestive part of the gland waste away, and extract what is left. With Charles Best over one summer he produced an extract that kept a depancreatised dog alive; James Collip purified it, and in January 1922 a boy of fourteen dying on a Toronto ward recovered. This lesson's account of what insulin does to blood glucose is exactly what those first patients demonstrated.
• GM Insulin and GM Crops — Biology: Every advantage listed on this page is measured against what Banting had. In 1921 he and Charles Best tied off the pancreatic ducts of dogs, extracted what remained of the gland, and produced something that kept a depancreatised animal alive; James Collip purified it enough for a human being, and in January 1922 a fourteen-year-old dying in a Toronto ward recovered. Every dose after that came out of a cattle or pig pancreas for sixty years. He sold the patent to his university for one dollar so that nobody could own the supply — which is the exact question genetically modified crops now raise again.

Begin

• Start a conversation with Banting — a dramatised, historically grounded AI portrayal
• Read the Historical Brief
• Explore the life of Banting — five chapters
• Find your exam topics · Meet all 208 figures