A century ago, medicine’s landscape shifted dramatically. On a cold January day in 1922, Canadian doctors administered the world’s first insulin shot to 14-year-old Leonard Thompson, snatching him from diabetes’s deadly grip and heralding a new treatment paradigm.
Before insulin, diabetes victims endured agonizing declines. Without pancreatic hormone, glucose poisoned the blood, and semi-starvation diets offered false hope. Thompson’s dire state prompted Banting’s team at Toronto University—Best, Collip, Macleod—to accelerate their pancreas research, overcoming extraction impurities through sheer determination.
The pivotal injection’s early glitches were overcome swiftly. Thompson’s revival was stunning: stabilized vitals, restored energy, a boy reborn. This success greenlit industrial manufacturing, flooding clinics globally and slashing diabetes deaths.
Insulin’s legacy endures, enabling normalcy for diabetics everywhere. It celebrates collaborative genius, turning a fatal flaw into a controlled condition. As we mark this anniversary, it inspires continued advances in endocrinology and beyond.