The True Banting and Best Story: The Priority Rule and the Discovery of the Antidiabetic Hormone

In 1993, Michael Bliss, Professor of History, University of Toronto, denounced "the Banting and Best Myth,"invented by Charles Best after F.G. Banting's death in 1941, as an alternative version of the history of insulin discovery, with the message that "Banting and Best discovered insulin on their own in 1921."On the occasion of the 41st Annual EASD Meeting an International Experts Symposium entitled "Who Discovered Insulin?"was organized in Delphi on September 8, 2005 to debate the priority of main contributions to the discovery of insulin. At the end of the meeting, the organizers omitted any official declaration and the announced vote of experts was cancelled. We performed a comprehensive review from 1889 to April 1923, following the premises of the priority rule defined by Merton in 1957. The main documents surveyed were original publications on the organotherapy of diabetes and patents. We identified 3 European researchers meeting the criteria of the priority rule: Eugène Émile Gley, Georg Zülzer, and Nicolae Paulescu. In several reports (1923, 1925, and 1926), J.J.R. Macleod recognized the achievements and written reports of Gley (1905), Zülzer (1908), and Paulescu (1920). Ian Murray supported (1969, 1971) the priority of Zülzer and Paulescu. Michael Bliss reported (1993) that the results published by Banting and Best in February 1922 did not overcome Zülzer's results in 1908 and Paulescu's results (published in 1920 and 1921). The Banting and Best Myth failed in the long run. European researchers showed priority in the discovery of the pancreatic antidiabetic hormone.