Highlights from the Archives

Additional highlights from the archives are organized into three sections:

First Clinical Trials
This section takes a look at the first trials of the pancreatic extract on diabetic patients, including Joseph Gilchrist and Leonard Thompson. It also features some of the key publications that discussed the experiments and the trials, including the paper J.J.R. Macleod delivered on May 3, 1922 that documents the first widely publicized announcement of the discovery and the first time the extract is referred to as “insulin.”

Early Patients
This section contains material relating to early patients treated with insulin including Myra Blaustein, Charlotte Clarke, James D. Havens, Elizabeth Evans Hughes, Elsie Needham, Theodore (Teddy) Ryder, Leonard Thompson, Janet Turnbull, and Ruth Whitehill. It includes information about the patients along with selections of letters, patient charts, newspaper clippings, and photographs.

The Manufacture of Insulin
This section contains documents and correspondence relating to the early manufacture of insulin. A highlight of this section is the patent for insulin to the Governors of the University of Toronto. In this document, signed December 19, 1922, Banting, Best, and Collip gave the University of Toronto the Canadian patent for the preparation of insulin for the token payment of $1.00.