08/10/2026
Frederick Banting's insistence that insulin is not a cure but a treatment was not false modesty; it was a precise and important scientific statement about the nature of what he had discovered, and it reflected the same rigour and honesty that had characterized his approach to the original discovery and to the ethical questions about patent ownership that followed it. Insulin does not cure Type 1 diabetes. It replaces the function of the pancreatic beta cells that the immune system has destroyed, providing the hormone that the body can no longer produce and enabling the metabolic processes that would otherwise be impossible. A person with Type 1 diabetes who takes insulin is alive and functional, but they must continue taking insulin for the rest of their lives, managing their blood sugar through multiple daily measurements and injections or through an insulin pump, and dealing with the complications that even well-managed diabetes can produce over time. Banting knew this from the moment of the first human trials, and he was careful throughout his public statements about insulin to be clear about what it was and was not. The Nobel Prize ceremony and lecture were occasions for the kind of triumphalist language that Banting consistently refused. His Nobel lecture, delivered in Stockholm on December 12 1925, described the discovery in precise scientific language and acknowledged the contributions of Best, Collip, and Macleod with a generosity that was noted by everyone present. The anger about the Nobel Committee's exclusion of Best, which Banting expressed publicly and which led to his announcement that he would share his prize money with Best immediately upon learning of the award, reflected his deep commitment to giving credit accurately. He had not done this alone, and he said so.
