The Discovery of Insulin

Michael Bliss’s “The Discovery of Insulin” takes you behind the scenes of one of the 20th century’s most celebrated medical breakthroughs—how insulin was isolated and turned from a lab curiosity into a life-saving treatment for diabetes. But don’t expect a simple hero’s journey here. Bliss is on a mission to bust the myth that this discovery was the brainchild of just two guys, Banting and Best, and instead paints a far richer, more tangled picture.

At the center of the drama is Frederick Banting, a surgeon with barely any research chops, who had a hunch about the pancreas and diabetes and pushed hard to get his project off the ground. Alongside him was Charles Best, a medical student whose enthusiasm and hands-on skills made the lab work possible. But they didn’t work in a vacuum. Enter John Macleod, a seasoned physiologist who provided the lab space, funding, and crucial guidance—and James Collip, the biochemist who took the raw extract and turned it into something pure enough to inject into humans.

Bliss digs into the scientific backdrop, showing how isolating insulin wasn’t just about mixing chemicals but wrestling with the pancreas’s tricky biology and decades of failed attempts by others. He also doesn’t shy away from the egos, rivalries, and messy personalities that shaped the work. Banting and Best might get the glory, but Macleod’s role in steering the project and Collip’s painstaking purification work were indispensable.

What’s refreshing is how Bliss leans on archival sources, unpublished memoirs, and even Nobel Committee notes, peeling back layers of official history to reveal the human side of science—the doubts, the credit disputes, and the sheer stubbornness it took to get insulin from idea to treatment. The book also captures how this discovery instantly changed lives, turning a fatal diagnosis into a manageable condition.

But it’s not just a history lesson. Bliss’s work is a reminder that scientific breakthroughs rarely come from lone geniuses working in isolation. They are messy, collaborative, and often political. The book invites readers—whether medical professionals, historians, or curious minds—to rethink how we assign credit and understand the process behind scientific progress.

That said, the book isn’t a breezy read. Bliss sometimes dives deep into the weeds, detailing minor disputes and technical minutiae that might test the patience of casual readers. And while the focus on interpersonal drama is fascinating, it occasionally overshadows the sheer scientific achievement itself.

Still, published in 1982 and refreshed in 2007, this book remains a cornerstone for anyone wanting a clear-eyed, no-nonsense account of how insulin went from a lab experiment to a medical miracle. It’s a reminder that behind every headline-grabbing discovery is a group of flawed, determined humans figuring things out one frustrating step at a time.