Insulin therapy treats diabetes mellitus by replacing the hormone insulin, which the body can no longer produce or use effectively. A team at the University of Toronto, physiologist John Macleod, surgeon Frederick Banting, medical student Charles Best and biochemist James Collip, isolated and purified insulin from animal pancreases over the course of 1921 and early 1922. Banting and Macleod alone received the 1923 Nobel Prize; Banting judged the choice of Macleod over Best unjust and split his own prize money with Best, and Macleod in turn split his with Collip, an implicit acknowledgment by both laureates that the official credit was too narrow. This atlas describes the history of the treatment and is not medical advice.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearInsulin was isolated in 1921, but Best and Collip's biochemical extraction method, developed within days of each other in early 1922, was what made a purified, clinically usable insulin possible; historians still debate how credit for the discovery should be divided among the four researchers, and 1922 is used by some accounts as the true origin year of insulin as a usable treatment. Connections
Associated With
Source Our History (Endocrine Society)
Discovered By
Worked alongside Banting through 1921 to isolate and test the extract; excluded from the 1923 Nobel Prize, which Banting split with him in protest.
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Led the University of Toronto team; shared the 1923 Nobel Prize with Macleod.
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Long-Form Articles
Treats
Insulin therapy manages blood glucose levels; it is not a cure. Frederick Banting and Charles Best's 1921 to 1922 isolation of insulin at the University of Toronto is the founding discovery this treatment rests on.
Source A History of MedicineLois N. Magner
Insulin therapy is a standard treatment for gestational diabetes when diet alone does not control glucose.
Insulin therapy is the essential standard treatment for type 1 diabetes.
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationHistory section, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_(medication)
Insulin was first used as a medication in Canada by Charles Best and Frederick Banting in 1922.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_(medication), lead section
As a medication, insulin is any pharmaceutical preparation of the protein hormone insulin that is used to treat high blood glucose.
View the Source Wikipedia: Insulin (medication)
Wikipedialead
As a medication, insulin is any pharmaceutical preparation of the protein hormone insulin that is used to treat high blood glucose.
History
Insulin was first used as a medication in Canada by Charles Best and Frederick Banting in 1922.
View the Source Wikidata: Insulin Therapy
Wikidata Q2002370, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Roy Porter, W. W. Norton and Company, 1997- Discovered By: Frederick Banting
- Discovered By: Charles Best
A History of Medicine
Lois N. Magner, CRC PressTreats: Diabetes Mellitus
Our History (Endocrine Society)
Essays About This Entity (1 essay)
Two Discoveries, Not One Gland, Define Endocrinology
Insulin therapy, the clinical result of the 1921-1922 discovery.
Read the EssayFrequently Asked Questions
When and by whom was insulin first used as a medication?
Charles Best and Frederick Banting, in Canada, in 1922.
According to the source, insulin was first used as a medication in Canada by Charles Best and Frederick Banting in 1922. As a medication, insulin is any pharmaceutical preparation of the protein hormone insulin that is used to treat high blood glucose.
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