Sir Frederick Banting was born on November 14th, 1891 in Alliston, Ontario. He attended the University of Toronto, originally studying divinity but later switching to medicine. In 1916, he earned his Bachelor of Medicine degree, and then joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps. In 1918, he was wounded at the battle of Cambrai.. He was consequently awarded the Military Cross for heroism under fire, and continued serving until 1919, when the war ended.
Banting then became a medical practitioner, although very briefly. In 1919, he became the Resident Surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He then taught orthopedics at the University of Western Ontario in London, and soon after became a Lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto. In 1922, Banting was awarded his Doctor of Medicine Degree. It was not long after that he successfully isolated insulin, to be used for the treatment of diabetes, and he won the Reeve Prize as a result of this. He was also appointed Senior Demonstrator in Medicine at the University of Toronto, as well as receiving two more degrees: his Doctor of Law from Queens University, and his Doctor of Science from the University of Toronto. In 1923, Banting also became the Honorary Consulting Physician at the Toronto Western Hospital, the Toronto General Hospital, and the Hospital for Sick Children. He even was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and was elected to the Banting and Best Chair of Medical Research, which he led himself. As a further honor, he was knighted in 1934.
In 1924, Banting married Marion Robertson, and had one child. However, they divorced in 1934, and he married Henrietta Ball in 1937. Soon after, he served in the Second World War as a liaison officer, but was killed in February 1941 due to an air disaster in Newfoundland.
