The Injection That Almost Killed the First Insulin Patient and Sparked a Nobel Prize Feud

On January 11, 1922, Leonard Thompson, a fourteen-year-old diabetic boy wasting away at Toronto General Hospital, became the first human to receive an injection of insulin—and nearly died from it. The boy weighed a mere 65 pounds, was slipping in and out of a diabetic coma, and had perhaps weeks to live. Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who had spent months extracting this mysterious pancreatic substance from dogs, figured they had nothing to lose. What they actually had was insulin so impure it triggered a severe allergic reaction. Thompson's condition didn't improve, and they had to suspend the treatment. Here's where the story gets interesting: they didn't give up. They went back to the lab, and biochemist James Collip worked frantically to purify the extract. Twelve days later, on January 23, they tried again with the improved version. This time, Thompson's blood sugar levels dropped dramatically, his symptoms vanished, and he went on to live another thirteen years—not bad for a kid who had been on death's door. The kicker? Within months, insulin became mass-produced, transforming type 1 diabetes from a death sentence into a manageable condition. By the end of 1923, Banting and lab director John Macleod won the Nobel Prize—though the speed of that award (less than two years) remains one of the fastest in Nobel history. Banting was so furious that Best wasn't included that he split his prize money with him, while Macleod shared his with Collip. That first botched injection on January 11? It was the spectacularly messy beginning of one of medicine's greatest success stories. This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.