Banting and best designed an experiment. What did they do and discover?

Fred Banting and Charles Best are credited with the discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921. Banting was the chief researcher, Best was his research assistant...chosen over another man by the toss of a coin.




The Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin was shared by Banting and another man, a Scot by the name of John Macleod, head of the department where the research was carried out. It transpires that although history seems to give full credit to Banting and Best, the real glory should have gone to Macleod and another researcher, James Collip, who between them made all the most vital contributions to the project. In fact, without their contributions, Banting and Best could not progress any further than the previous work of Romanian Nicolai Paulescu who had already had far greater success in isolating active secretions from dog pancreases. It was Macleod's and Collip's suggestions which enabled the first successful trials on human diabetics.



Best was excluded from the Nobel Prize as his contribution was purely a functional pair of hands and not an intellectual one. Collip should've received far more credit than he actually did. Banting shared his prize fund with Best 50/50 and Macleod did the same with Collip.



Actual experiment:



Some dogs had their pancreases removed. Secretions were isolated from the pancreases of healthy dogs. These secretions were used to inject into the first set of dogs in an atempt to keep them alive. The Toronto University team were the first to complete successful trials with diabetic humans.

Source(s):

Fabulous Science, Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery, by John Waller.