EDITORIALS sources of funds for the support of the work of the The memories of Charles Best and the reminiscences Association, which, as an organization, has never made of Robin Lawrence (England's great "student-diabetic"), a public appeal for funds. published last summer in Geneva and reprinted else- HENRY E. MARKS, M.D. where in this issue, are stirring and valuable recollec- New York City tions of the agony and the ecstasy of 1921-1922 for all

THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DISCOVERY OF INSULIN Nov. 14, 1961, marked the 40th Anniversary of the :FOT. 14th - 4 o'clock - 2o3m 17 first communication by Banting and Best when they re- - Dr. Banting ported the discovery of insulin to the Physiological Jour- \"r. Best " nal Club of the University of Toronto on the subject of * Subject - Pa:iorc«t?io Diabetes , - ' pancreatic diabetes.* The Journal DIABETES takes note

of this occasion with the pride common to all who recall The simple announcement above appeared on the bulletin the impact of the achievement heralded by that report. board in the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto preceding the first report by Banting and Best of the Frederick Banting's memory is kept fresh by the fact discovery of insulin. that every day some newly discovered, young diabetic can face life serenely and securely under the protection diabetics and their troubled physicians. New hope came of insulin. Charles Best, our beloved colleague, moves unexpectedly from modest, unknown sources. The hope everywhere as the standard-bearer for good care of became a reality and diabetics ever since have been diabetic patients, as well as the interpreter of insulin's given countless new lives. The spreading benefits of health-giving properties. those saved lives are brilliantly illustrated in another All physicians, investigators and students of medicine therapeutic miracle when George Minot, an insulin- have been made richer and better as a result of witness- dependent diabetic, was saved to become a sterling ing or learning the story of the discovery of insulin medical scientist and, in time, a Nobel prize-winner as which has opened unending opportunities for endocrine a co-discoverer of the cause and cure of pernicious ane- and metabolic research. mia—another of humanity's medical triumphs. It is, therefore, fitting and pleasant to salute Banting and Best *The first published report of their discovery, entitled "The again in this Anniversary Issue. Internal Secretion of the Pancreas," appeared in the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine, Vol. 7, No. 5, February IRVING GRAEF, M.D. 1922, pp. 251-66. New York City ABSTRACTS Antoniades, Harry N.; Beigelman, Paul M.; Tranquada, Rob- is sensitive both to heat and storage. "Bound" insulin may ert B.; and Gundersen, Kare (Protein Foundation Labs., Ja- represent a stored circulating insulin. H.L.W. maica Plain, Mass.; Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif.; Boston Dispensary and Tufts Univ., Boston, Mass.) : Antoniades, Harry N.; Gundersen, Kare; and Pyle, Hugh M. STUDIES ON THE STATE OF INSULIN IN BLOOD: "FREE" (Protein Foundation Labs., Jamaica Plain, Mass.; and the INSULIN AND INSULIN COMPLEXES IN HUMAN SERA AND Boston Dispensary, and the School of Med., Tufts Univ., Bos- THEIR IN VITRO BIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES. Endocrinology 69: ton, Mass.) : STUDIES ON THE STATE OF INSULIN IN BLOOD: 46-54, July 1961. THE ROLE OF GLUCOSE IN THE IN VIVO DISSOCIATION OF Insulin is found in the blood in both "free" and "bound" INSULIN COMPLEXES. Endocrinology 69:163-69, July 1961. forms. The latter is without activity when assayed by the rat Levels of "free" and of "bound" insulin have been deter- diaphragm method. The ratio of "bound" to "free" insulin in mined in both nondiabetic and diabetic individuals before and the sera of nondiabetic subjects is quite variable. Separation after the injection of glucose. In the fasting subject insulin is of the two forms of insulin is accomplished by the exclusive present largely in the "bound" form. Within ten to twenty absorption of the "bound" form on a cationic resin. Bound minutes after intravenous injection of glucose, the levels of insulin is a basic protein-insulin complex which can be dis- "free" insulin rise and those of "bound" insulin fall. The sociated by the addition of adipose tissue extract. The latter untreated diabetic patient shows a slower than normal rate of

488 DIABETES, VOL. IO, NO. 6