New York Historical Society Exhibition - Discovery of Insulin

September 14, 2010 through December 10, 2010

Quoted from the site:
https://www.nyhistory.org/web/default.php?section=exhibits_collections&page=exhibit_detail&id=7526899

LIFE FOR A CHILD
On its 90th anniversary, this exhibition highlights the dramatic discovery of insulin by Dr. Frederick Banting and a small group of University of Toronto scientists, its first human trials in January 1922, and its mass manufacture within months by Eli Lilly and Company. In the period immediately preceding the discovery, starvation diets were developed by Dr. Frederick Allen as a treatment, but such diets only prolonged life for a few years at most. The exhibition will focus on: 1) the race between starvation and a cure as seen through the eyes of a small group of individuals including Dr. Allen’s and Dr. Banting’s most famous patient, Elizabeth Evans Hughes, daughter of Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, US Secretary of State, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, and Republican Presidential candidate; 2) the collaboration between Toronto and Lilly, the first collaboration between a university and a drug company in history; and, 3) an overview of later developments, including the marketing of the world’s first biotechnology drug, human insulin, by Lilly in the 1980s, and a description of the current state of research and treatment. Digital inter-actives and film will be featured prominently along with artifacts and ephemera.