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May 18, 2017 · The University of Toronto's Michael Bliss, “one of Canada’s most prominent public intellectuals” and a University Professor Emeritus, died yesterday. He was 76. The renowned historian was the award-winning author of 14 books on business, politics and medicine for both scholarly and popular audiences, including a book on the history of insulin.
May 25, 2017 · John William Michael Bliss was born in Leamington, Ontario, on Jan. 18, 1941, to Dr. Quartus Bliss and the former Anne Crowe. He grew up in Kingsville, a farming and fishing town just to the west.
- ‘The Pissing Evil’
- Why So Angry?
- ‘I Would Knock Hell Out of Him’
- The Tragedy of Georg Zuelzer
- ‘That son-of-a-bitch Best’
- Convincing The World
- Wall Street Gold
Diabetes derives its name from the ancient Greek word for “to flow” – a reference to one of its most common symptoms and for which the 17th-century English doctor Thomas Willis(1625-75) gave it the far more memorable name of “the pissing evil”. But frequent trips to the toilet were the least of a patient’s worries. Before the discovery of insulin, ...
But why was Banting so furious? As far as he was concerned, having to share the award with Macleod was not just a travesty, but an insult. He thought that Macleod had no right whatsoever to have any claim on the discovery of insulin, as an entry from a journal written in 1940 makes abundantly clear: And yet, had it not been for Macleod, Banting mig...
So what had changed in those two weeks? The answer was that this second batch of extract had not been prepared by Banting and Best but by their colleague James Collip. He was a biochemist by training and with his expertise had been able to remove enough of the impurities from the raw pancreatic extract so that, when injected, it did not cause a tox...
In 1908, German doctor Georg Zuelzerhad shown that pancreatic extracts could not only reduce the sugars and ketones in the urine of six diabetic patients but also bring at least one of those patients out of a diabetic coma. Calling his preparation “Acomatol”, Zuelzer had been so confident about its effectiveness in treating diabetes that he had eve...
So why don’t we remember Zuelzer? According to the late historian Michael Bliss, the answer has much to do with Charles Best who, just like Zuelzer, felt hurt by the award going to Banting and Macleod. When Banting first heard that he had been awarded the Nobel, he sent a telegram to Best who was in Boston at the time, saying: “Nobel trustees have ...
Best appeared to have finally secured his place in medical history. At least so it seemed, until the late 1960s, when he received a letter that gave the wasps’ nest yet another poke. It revealed that during the summer of 1921, just as Banting and Best were embarking on their own research, a Romanian scientist called Nicolae Paulescu had already pub...
Whatever judgments we may pass on Best, there is no denying that he had grasped a crucial insight about an important way in which science was changing. Doing experiments in the lab was only half the story: scientists had also to persuade the wider world of the value of those experiments. And by the time of his death in 1978, this was a lesson that ...
- Kersten Hall
Michael Bliss PhD The preeminent medical historian of our era, Michael Bliss chronicled Canada’s heritage of medical research, health care, and scientific achievement for his fellow Canadians and the world. Professor Bliss’ "The Discovery of Insulin" (1982) remains an enduring classic, masterfully recounting one of the
Feb 15, 2013 · Michael Bliss. University of Chicago Press, Feb 15, 2013 - Science - 322 pages. When insulin was discovered in the early 1920s, even jaded professionals marveled at how it brought starved, sometimes comatose diabetics back to life. In the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of a classic, Michael Bliss unearths scientists' memoirs and confidential ...
Michael Bliss was a modest individual of great intellect and integrity whose books on Canadian business, politics, and medical history brought him international acclaim. Fortunately for both the man himself and the rest of us, Bliss never forgot his boyhood small-town roots.
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May 19, 2017 · “Michael Bliss brings a wealth of knowledge to Canada and the world,” O’Neill said. The Medical Hall of Fame website says Bliss’ “The Discovery of Insulin” remains “an enduring ...
