Rewriting Medical History: Charles Best and the Banting and Best Myth

Abstract

HE 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Frederick Banting and James J. R. Macleod for the discovery of insulin. Banting divided his share of the prize money equally with Charles Best; Macleod split his share with James B. Collip. As the discovery of insulin passed into medical history, it was seldom described in the most obvious ways, as the product of the researches of Banting and Macleod; or of those of Banting, Macleod, Best, and Collip. Instead the discovery of insulin was almost universally credited to Banting and Best. In The Discovery of Insulin, published in 1982, and its sequel, Banting: A Biography in 1984,1 documented the ways in which Banting, who had clashed constantly and bitterly with Macleod and Collip during the insulin research, worked assiduously and with considerable success during his lifetime to spread the view that he had discovered insulin with the help of Best. Best had been his student assistant, one of two recent graduates in Honours Physiology and Biochemistry assigned by Macleod to work with Banting for pay. There is convincing evidence that Best won a coin toss with the other student E. C. Noble, to see who would work first, and then, with Noble's approval, stayed on with Banting for the duration. Best's job was to do the tests, mostly of blood sugar, that Banting required. After one confrontation about Best's methods, during which the two almost came to blows, they settled down and worked harmoniously. Their research adventure, directed by Mac

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