The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Frederick Banting and J.J.R. Macleod in 1923 formally recognized the tremendous achievement of the Toronto team in discovering and developing insulin, a substance that continues to alleviate the suffering and prevent the death of many millions of diabetics throughout the world.

This site documents the initial period of the discovery and development of insulin, 1920-1925, here at the University of Toronto. It presents over seven thousand page images reproducing original documents ranging from laboratory notebooks and charts, correspondence, writings, and published papers to photographs, awards, clippings, scrapbooks, printed ephemera and artifacts. Drawing mainly on the Banting, Best and related collections housed at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and the Archives and Records Management Services at the University of Toronto, it also includes significant holdings from the Aventis Pasteur (formerly Connaught) Archives, and the personal collection of Dr. Henry Best.

The following content provides additional approaches to the core digitized material by providing an overview and context for the individual historical documents and artifacts which are displayed and described online.

The Interactive Timeline offers a chronological summary of some of the most significant steps in the discovery and refinement of the pancreatic extract up until the time of its worldwide standardization and dissemination.

The Biographies pages present the story of insulin as part of the life story of each of the four co-discoverers - Banting, Best, Collip, and Macleod.

From a Patient's Point of View draws together the dramatic accounts of some of the earliest patients successfully treated with insulin in Toronto, through their eyes and the eyes of their doctors. Each of these sections presents a different angle on one of the most dramatic and moving events in the history of modern medicine.