Canadian History for Kids: Dr. Frederick Banting

A truly amazing Canadian receives the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Dr. Frederick Banting discovered insulin, enabling people with diabetes to live long and healthy lives. The discovery won him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1923, worldwide acclaim and, in 1934, a knighthood from the British Crown. This Canadian History for Kids, Sketches of Canada, looks at this remarkable Canadian.

This Canadian History for Kids article begins with Banting being born November 14, 1891, in Alliston, Ontario. He earned a medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1916, the he joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps and served in France during the First World War, where, in 1919, he earned the Military Cross for heroism under fire.

In 1920, Banting began started working on the problem of diabetes. At that time, people with diabetes had shortened lives Insulin is a naturally occurring hormone that turns sugar into energy.

Banting and Dr. Charles Best, then a medical student, working in a small laboratory, started experiments on dogs, working on insulin samples for human use. On January 23, 1922, the researchers gave their insulin serum for the first time to a human, 14 year old Leonard Thompson. He experienced an almost instant recovery.

The discovery was not a cure, but it was a treatment for a previously untreatable disease. This Canadian History for Kids article continues when Banting and Best sold the rights to the University of Toronto for $1, ensuring that insulin could be available to all those who needed it.

Banting developed an interest in painting beginning around 1921 while he was in London, Ontario. He became friends with Group of Seven artists A.Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris, sharing their love of the Canadian landscape. In 1927 he made a sketching trip with Jackson to the St. Lawrence in Quebec.

This Canadian History for Kids article continues during World War II, where Banting served as a liaison officer between the British and North American medical services. He was travelling to England in 1941, when he died in a plane crash in Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland.

And that’s this weeks Canadian History for Kids, Sketches of our Canada.
 

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