Dr. Frederick Banting

Frederick BantingArthur Goss [Public domain] via Wikimedia CommonsMy hero that I have chosen is Dr. Frederick Banting. He was born on November 14, 1891 in Alliston, Ontario and died February 21, 1949. I chose Dr. Frederick Banting because he was the inventor of insulin and was a doctor in WWI getting his military cross for heroism. Dr. Frederick Banting is worth knowing about because he saved millions of lives by inventing insulin for people with diabetes and setting aside his own wounds in WWI to help other wounded soldiers.

He spent most of his childhood like every other child going to school. He tried to enter the military but was refused because of poor eyesight. He then attended the University of Toronto in the faculty of Divinity but then transferred to medicine. He showed huge talent and interest in medicine and soon got his Degree in 1916 and was hired in the Canadian Army Medical Corps, which was in need of medical assistants in WWI. One night he was wounded helping another solider but ignored his own wound to help more wounded soldiers for 16 hours until other doctors told him to stop and get help. He was awarded the military cross for heroism in 1919.

He came back to Toronto that year and then studied orthopedic medicine and in 1920 was hired at the hospital for sick children as a resident surgeon and worked part time teaching orthopedics at the University Of Western Ontario in London. That's where he read an article about ''the pancreas that piqued his interest in diabetes. Research by Naunyn, Minkowski, Opie, Schafer, and others suggested that diabetes resulted from a lack of a protein hormone secreted by the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas.''(*) Dr. Schafer named this hormone insulin. The thing was that they tried to get insulin from ground up pancreas cells but that failed because the insulin was destroyed in the process. They had to find a way to get insulin from the pancreas before it shuts down. ''The procedure caused deterioration of the cells of the pancreas that secrete trypsin but left the islets of Langerhans intact. Dr. Frederick Banting then realized that this procedure would destroy the trypsin-secreting cells but not the insulin.''(*) His realization was true; they successfully got insulin from the pancreas in 1920!

This achievement of successfully getting insulin has saved millions of lives with people that have diabetes including my best friend. Without Dr. Frederick Banting millions of lives would be gone. Sadly on February 21, 1941 he was in a plane crash which took his life. But with the endless effort from Dr. Banting we would not be as close to finding a cure for diabetes without him. He was named one of the top ten greatest Canadians in 2004, that is why Dr. Frederick Banting is my hero.