Nobel Prize Controversy
In February 1922, doctor Frederick Grant Banting and biochemist John James Rickard Macleod from the University of Toronto, Canada, published their paper on the successful use of a different, alcohol based pancreatic extract for normalizing blood sugar (glucose) levels (glycemia) in a human patient, a young boy.
While Paulescu had patented his technique in Romania, no clinical use resulted from his work, as his saline extract could not be used on humans. The work published by Banting, Best, Collip and McLeod represented the injection of purified insulin extract, after into a diabetic individual ameliorating symptoms of the disease. Not surprisingly, Banting and Macleod received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of insulin treatment.
Professor Ian Murray was particularly active in working to correct "the historical wrong" against Paulescu. Murray was a professor of physiology at the Anderson College of Medicine in Glasgow, Scotland, the head of the department of Metabolic Diseases at a leading Glasgow hospital, vice-president of the British Association of Diabetes, and a founding member of the International Diabetes Federation. In an article for a 1971 issue of the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Murray wrote:
"Insufficient recognition has been given to Paulesco, the distinguished Roumanian scientist, who at the time when the Toronto team were commencing their research had already succeeded in extracting the antidiabetic hormone of the pancreas and proving its efficacy in reducing the hyperglycaemia in diabetic dogs."
"In a recent private communication Professor Tiselius, head of the Nobel Institute, has expressed his personal opinion that Paulesco was equally worthy of the award in 1923."
Read more about this topic: Nicolae Paulescu
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