Charles Herbert Best, 27 February 1899 - 31 March 1978

In 1921, at a time when Charles Best was only 22 years of age, there appeared in the Medical Building of the University of Toronto a notice which read: ‘University of Toronto Physiological Journal Club Nov. 14th — 4 o’clock — Room 17 Speakers — Dr. Banting Mr. Best Subject — Pancreatic Diabetes’. In this quiet fashion a medical revolution was foreshadowed which ultimately made possible the enjoyment of life, in good health, of millions of diabetic people who otherwise, before 1922, would have faced an early death . In 1972 Dr C. H. Best himself estimated that ‘approximately one hundred and thirty million people have taken insulin since 1922. Some of them have lived 50 years’ (30). To have been the joint discoverer of insulin at the outset of a career in medical science might have been a disability for one w ho aim ed at making subsequent discoveries, but the account that follows later of his research activities shows that this was not so for Charles Best. In a foreword to a Festschrift for Charles Herbert Best which was published in 1968 the Chancellor of the University of Toronto, Dr O. M. Solandt, wrote ‘Most scientists who make discoveries, even ones that lead to important end products, have little contact with those whom they help. Probably all of us have benefited greatly from the work of Einstein, but I doubt if he was stopped on the street by people w ho wanted to thank him personally for the great effect that the theory of general relativity had on their lives. The discovery of insulin was different. Literally millions of diabetics all over the world feel personally indebted to Banting and Best. As with Dr Banting, wherever Dr Best has gone he has been engulfed by an intense personal recognition of himself and his work. He has received quite exceptional public as well as professional acclaim for his achievements.’ But such acclaim did not induce him to rest upon his laurels, as might easily have been true for many others.