Banting: A Biography

Front Cover
McClelland and Stewart, 1984 - 336 pages
Frederick Banting was thirty-one when he received the Nobel Prize for his part in the discovery of insulin. He was catapulted to instant fame, for which he was neither personally nor professionally prepared. Set up as head of his own research institute by a grateful government, he struggled fruitlessly to duplicate his first triumph. His marriage to a beautiful socialite ended in a scandal that rocked Toronto, and he returned to work and painting to dull his frustration. He died in a mysterious plane crash; a new preface to this edition discusses recent findings about the crash. Michaeal Bliss's highly acclaimed biography explores the life of a scientist who during his lifetime was the most famous of all Canadians, but who in his private life stands revealed as a passionate, troubled man, in many ways the victim of his own fame.

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About the author (1984)

John William Michael Bliss was born in Leamington, Ontario, Canada on January 18, 1941. He graduated from the University of Toronto. He taught at the University of Toronto from 1968 until 2006. He was a historian of Canadian business and politics as well as medicine. He wrote 14 books during his lifetime including A Canadian Millionaire, The Discovery of Insulin, Banting: A Biography, William Osler: A Life in Medicine, and Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery. He was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2016. He died from complications of vasculitis, an inflammatory blood vessel disease, on May 18, 2017 at the age of 76.

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