One of Canada's Greatest, Sir Frederick Banting, Forged this Country's Medical Research Capacity

Friday, October 29, 2004

CBC television recently began airing a series entitled "The Greatest Canadians" based on thousands of Internet nominations received from across the country. Did you know that CBC's shortlist of the Top 10 Greatest Canadians includes Nobel Prize winner, physician, scientist, decorated military officer and NRC alumnus, Sir Frederick Banting? According to former NRC President, Dr. C.J. Mackenzie, "[Dr. Banting] told me many times that the happiest period of his life has been the period in which he was associated with the Council... "

Portrait of Sir Frederick Banting, courtesy of NRC Archives which maintains a 1937 - 1941 collection of his correspondence, material relating to work he did on behalf of NRC and press clippings.

On an international scale, diabetics are forever grateful that Dr. Banting and his colleagues discovered insulin, but Canadians and scientists at large are also indebted to Dr. Banting for influencing medical research in this country. Beyond his early fame, Dr. Banting had several NRC ties during the war years and through those roles he forever changed the face of medical research in Canada.

NRC established its Associate Committee on Medical Research in 1936 and appointed Dr. Banting as the committee's first chair. In this capacity, Dr. Banting was instrumental in guiding more widespread medical research across Canada, promoting the development of medical research, securing additional funding beyond the committee's $53,000 budget, and liaising with medical research counterparts in Europe and the United States. Collaborating with other countries was especially difficult due to pre-war and wartime fears that research would be leaked to German scientists.

Through NRC's Associate Committee on Medical Research, Dr. Banting, together with his colleagues from Canadian university medical schools, were able to financially support research across the country. Prior to the establishment of this NRC committee, researchers - who weren't part of McGill's or the University of Toronto's medical faculties - had little to no access to funds and research support.

The Committee's work laid the foundation for establishing the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The first evolutionary step occurred when NRC's Associate Committee on Medical Research became the NRC Division of Medical Research in 1946, headed by Dr. James Bertram (J.B.) Collip, one of Sir Banting's insulin collaborators. Eleven years later the Division was dubbed Canada's Medical Research Council, a more autonomous organization that still fell under NRC's administrative umbrella.

In 1969 the Medical Research Council officially spun-off from NRC becoming a crown corporation reporting to Parliament. The last evolutionary phase occurred in June 2000, when the Government of Canada announced the renaming of the Medical Research Council as CIHR.

In addition to heading NRC's Associate Committee on Medical Research, Dr. Banting was also appointed to NRC's governing council in June 1937. During the last five years of his life, Dr. Banting frequently traveled by train to NRC in Ottawa from his labs in Toronto and London, Ontario to help NRC administrators and researchers. He was dabbling in NRC labs at a time when researchers around the world conducted experiments on themselves. In the name of science, Dr. Banting subjected himself to mustard gas exposure, test flights without cabin pressurization, and other unhealthy risks.

At the time NRC laboratories, among others, were largely dedicated to war efforts as scientists shifted the focus of their endeavours to solving war problems and to alleviating the plights of Canadian troops and the challenges facing medical personnel. These projects included: wound infections, penicillin, typhus vaccine, shock, fatigue, blood storage and substitutes, nutrition, traumatic injuries of the nervous system, industrial hygiene, plastic and thoracic surgery, and industrial medicine. Dr. Banting was also involved in countless other NRC contributions to the war, such as synthetic rubber flight suits, early atomic energy studies, and work on jet engines.

In 1939 Canada's Committee on Aviation Medical Research was established by NRC, the Department of Defence and the Department of Transport. Dr. Banting was asked to preside over this interdepartmental committee. As chairman he was a strong proponent for having the committee become NRC's Associate Committee on Aviation Medical Research, which it did in 1940. In an ironic twist, aviation would end Dr. Banting's life.

On February 20, 1941 Dr. Banting boarded a Lockheed Hudson bomber aircraft that was being delivered to Europe. Had tragedy not struck during this business trip to England, this would have been Dr. Banting's first transatlantic flight. Tragically, shortly after taking off from Gander, Newfoundland, Dr. Banting and two other occupants were victims of a fatal plane crash that only the pilot survived. According to the pilot, Dr. Banting regained consciousness and appeared to have primarily suffered a broken left arm and head injuries. The next afternoon frigid temperatures and a punctured left lung took their toll and Dr. Banting died, three days before rescue crews finally discovered the crash site.

Dr. Banting's influence continues to be felt today as someone who forged Canada's medical research capacity that benefits Canadians and people from around the world.

Dr. J.B. Collip's tribute to Dr. Banting, delivered during NRC's May 1941 governing council meeting, summarizes his impact magnificently "To [Dr. Banting] must go the credit for organizing and directing with outstanding success the Associate Committee on Medical Research. He also took the keenest interest in every phase of science and brought to the Council table not only a fund of information, a fertile and imaginative mind, but an irresistible enthusiasm that swept away difficulties and stimulated activities in all fields. His greatest interest since the outbreak of war lay in the field of aviation, and as Chairman of the Associate Committee on Aviation Medical Research he originated and planned investigations of far-reaching importance and had obtained practical results that have already been acknowledged in Britain and America. When the full effects of such studies are recognized, it will be apparent that Banting by his tireless energy and grasp of essential factors placed Canada in the forefront of yet another field of medical research."

Key resources consulted for this article:

Michael Bliss, Banting: A Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984)
Wilfrid Eggleston, National Research in Canada: The NRC 1916-1966 (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and Co., 1978)