Fred & Marjorie: A Doctor, a Dog, and the Discovery of Insulin

Published in the 100th year since the discovery of insulin in 1921, Fred & Marjorie is a delightful graphic novel biography of Frederick Banting’s central role in the discovery of insulin and the part that dogs played in the research. Officially known as Dog 33, Marjorie was the one dog that Banting insisted on giving a name to, and she was the last dog used to prove the efficacy of the insulin extract prior to moving on to human trials. Near the end of January, 1922, Marjorie had survived 70 days without a pancreas but receiving treatment with the new discovery. The extract called insulin was too precious to continue using it to keep her alive when so many young human patients with type 1 or juvenile diabetes were literally dying from the disease. Euthanasia was Marjorie’s final end, but she was an important part of this successful scientific research endeavor.

Kerbel’s decision to add fictional elements to true facts by including a backstory for the dog Marjorie and her early imagined contact with Banting serves a valuable role that brings a fresh lens to Banting’s affection for animals and the roles that dogs played in this enormously important medical discovery. This perspective will appeal to readers. The end material includes a page of text on the ethical dilemma of using animals in research. One unanswered question recorded is the source of the dogs used in the research.

Kerbel begins the story in 1920 with Banting (1891-1941), a dedicated young surgeon, working for a time at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Kerbel devotes several pages to the fictional storyline of an unnamed stray but friendly dog mooching food off humans, including Banting, appreciated by children, and disliked by some adults. Kerbel never says this dog is the same one that reappears in the story as Marjorie, but that is core to the fictional tale that emerges through the images. The scourge of diabetes is also introduced early as Kerbel notes and Poon illustrates that some of the sickest patients in the hospital were children suffering and dying from diabetes.

As for Banting, in the summer of 1920, once his residency ended at the hospital, he set off to London, Ontario, where he set up a medical practice. Kerbel and illustrator Poon make great use of the graphic medium to convey details in pictures. A desk calendar tells the month and year that Banting opened his practice, and an image of him hanging a name shingle on his door reinforces what had been stated in text a few images earlier. The illustrations are well researched. A passenger train belching smoke is depicted arriving at London, represented by a welcome sign with the then population of 55,000 displayed. Poon’s illustrations are attentive to details of architecture, clothing, furnishing and physical appearances of the historic people in the story. Her pastel palette is pleasant to view, and the abundance of wood in furnishings, floors and brown in clothing help to give the imagery a sepia-like tone that adds another level to the narrative as one set in an earlier time.

Banting did not have many patients. He sought out and landed a part-time job teaching anatomy and surgery to students at the University of Western Ontario in the fall of 1920. Reading in preparation for delivering a lecture on the pancreas, he had a eureka moment when he awoke from a dream and hastily scrawled some research ideas about a treatment for diabetes on a small notepad. This part of the story is told in five panels on one page using text judiciously and making the most of the sequential nature of graphic narratives. A photograph of the actual middle-of-the-night note is included in the “Author’s Notes” at the end of the book along with a couple of iconic photos of Banting and the dog that is portrayed as Marjorie. As an aside, it is noteworthy that the eureka moment explain’s Banting House National Historic Site’s claim to being the “birthplace of insulin”. The NHS in London, Ontario, is listed in the sources consulted.

It was the University of Toronto’s J.R.R. Macleod that agreed to give Banting laboratory space, some funding, access to research animals and a student research assistant, Charles Best, for the summer of 1921. Conditions were less than ideal. Animals died from infections, and, in the August heat, the sanitary conditions of the lab space deteriorated. Banting and Best made progress in refining the pancreatic extract that they originally called isletin but was renamed at Macleod’s suggestion to insulin, a word that is easier to pronounce. Macleod insisted on bringing biochemist James Bertram Collip into the research team. His role is not elaborated upon in this book, but it is well documented in other sources. The longevity test using the dog Marjorie began November 18th. The story concludes with the treatment of a 14- year-old patient, Leonard Thompson, who became the first human patient treated with purified insulin beginning January 23, 1922. Again, Poon’s illustrations, through the use of light and facial expressions, convey the practically miraculous improvement of the patient. The narrative ends with a panel of text worth sharing in full:

Eager to get insulin into the hands of ailing patients as soon as possible, the team sold their rights to the life-saving treatment to the University of Toronto for one dollar each.

As Fred famously said: “Insulin does not belong to me. It belongs to the world.”>