When Frederick Banting discovered insulin, he gave millions of doomed diabetics the gift of life. He also found a preventative for the dread disease of silicosis, contributed to vital cancer research, pioneered in aviation medicine and flight psychology. He was honored for his services to science and humanity by the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Banting grew up on a farm in Canada. When his tomboy playmate Jane died at fourteen of diabetes, he was determined to one day find the cause of this mysterious disease. At medical school in Toronto, he specialized in orthopedic surgery. When World War I broke out, he served on the French battlefields. For two harrowing years he treated the wounded, and despite an arm wound and possible amputation, he continued his work and won the Military Cross.

Back in Canada, Banting became a university instructor and researcher. He was still puzzled by the mysterious disease of diabetes. For nearly a century the world's most brilliant medical brains had been baffled by this disease. How could he, a novice with scant research experience, hope to succeed where others had failed? Yet he must try...

Then began the most dramatic and thrilling eight weeks in medical research history—the search for Hormone X. With Charles Best, his assistant, Banting sweated in a grimy attic laboratory, racing the time allotted him by Toronto University. Alternately sure of success and plunged into despair, they hung grimly through a series of experiments. They succeeded in discovering Hormone X, but it took many, many months before they perfected the wonder drug—insulin.

In the years since his death, Banting's name has become legend and his memory honored many times. But most significant is the fact that his memory is enshrined in the hearts of millions of men, women, and children to whom he has given the gift of life.

From the book