CHAPTER ONE SCIENCE STEP BY STEP In 1919 Canadian Dr Frederick Banting read about the pancreas in a medical journal His reading gave him an idea Could he suck insulin out of the pancreas and use it to treat people with diabetes Banting designed an experiment a scientific test He tied off part of the pancreas in a few dogs and drew out insulin This chemical unlocks your cells letting blood sugar inside In other dogs he removed the pancreas to cause diabetes Banting gave insulin shots to the sick dogs After many tries he found out his guess was right Giving insulin lowered the dogs blood sugar 4 Student Charles Best left helped Dr Charles Banting right with his research Here the two stand with one of the diabetic dogs used in the trials
How the Pancreas Works Stomach turns food into glucose Glucose enters the bloodstream Pancreas releases insulin Insulin allows glucose to enter cells throughout the body 5
The shots worked in people too Banting published his results in a medical journal to share his discovery with other scientists People with diabetes give themselves injections to maintain proper blood sugar levels 6
All scientists must follow the scientific method when conducting experiments Banting used a process called the scientific method to make his discovery The scientific method is a step-by-step process for solving science problems Scientists use it every day 7
