Banting to Use Nobel Award in AidingResearch
Insulin Discoverer to Devote $10,000 of His Share as Nucleus of
$1,000,000 Fund for Medical Study
Special Dispatch to The Tribune TORONTO, Ont., Nov. 4.—Dr.F. G. Banting,
of the University of Toronto, discoverer of insulin, is applying a
large portion of his recently awarded Nobel prize for medicine to
the recently inaugurated movement for raising a $1,000,000 fund for
research in Canada. One-half of his $20,000 share i of the $40,000
award, he says, will go to this purpose. Incidentally, he proposes
giving his other $10.000 to C. H. ; Best, his associate in the
investigations which led to the introduction of insulin as a treatment
for diabetes.
These plans were officially disclosed by John W. Roberts, chairman
of the banting Medical Research Foundation, originated by prominent
citizens of the United States and Canada to do honor to Dr. Banting.
As its nucleus this movement has the discoverer's own $10,000 benefaction,
intended to save other young Canadian scientists the difficulties which
almost denied the world his discovery.
Leading public men, educators and scientists of the two countries
already have become patrons of the movement, which will make its
initial appeal for , endowment in the United States, with Edwin
McCormick as secretary and the following committee: John A. Stewart
and Dr. George J. Stewart, New York, and Professor J. G. Fitzgerald
and Dr. George W. Ross, Toronto.
Dr. Banting recently told of waiting vainly for patients for
twenty-six days in his first office in London, Ont. It J was then
he made the note based on his reading which gave the
clew to insulin. He took his idea to the officers of
the university there, but i found research facilities
inadequate. I Even the University of Toronto, to which
he turned, had facilities which by comparison with American
and I French laboratories were so limited as
I to compel most young Canadians to pursue their experiments abroad.
BAnting hopes that the new fund may permit them to remain at home
and may enourage many who would be unable to afford studies abroad.
Some time ago a $1,000,000 insurance
policy on Dr. Banting was proposed,
but his decision to contribute a nucleus
toward a fund to benefit other young
scientists has given a more significant
direction to the proposals, which now
take definite shape ttnd will be pushed
to completion by his admirers.
Secretary Hughes, whose daughter was one of the first
patients treated with insulin at the Toronto General
Hospital, has become a patron of the fund in response to
the preliminary appeal. He writes:"I shall be glad to be
associated in a personal way with the proposal. '••
Having had occasion to know from personal observation in
my own family of the efficacy of the new treatment I feel a
deep sense of personal gratitude and I trust Dr. Banting and Mr. Best
will receive the recognition which they | richly deserve."