When the Discovery of Insulin Changed Lives
In a Toronto hospital ward in 1922, a group of children lays comatose and nearing the end of their lives from diabetic ketoacidosis. With their families already believing them terminal, in walked a group of scientists – including the famous duo of Banting and Best, who just that past summer had been working on an insulin extract. They began to inject the children, and as they moved from bed to bed, each child gradually emerged from their coma!
The scientists had spent the summer working on extracting insulin from pig and cow pancreas for the treatment of diabetes. Just try and imagine the parents’ reactions in that hospital room.