Margaret and Charley: The Personal Story of Dr. Charles Best, the Co-Discoverer of Insulin (review)

Since 2000, there has been a flurry of books dealing with the discovery of insulin. That year, the third edition of Michael Bliss's The Discovery of Insulin was issued in paperback. Then Alison Li's biography of J.B. Collip, the biochemist with whom J.J.R. Macleod shared his half of the Nobel Prize for insulin, came out in 2003 along with Henry B.M. Best's Margaret and Charley: The Personal Story of Dr. Charles Best, the Co-Discoverer of Insulin.

Until Margaret and Charley, there had been no published biography of this insulin researcher. The others whose names are associated with insulin have been the subject of biographies: Li on Collip (2003), Michael J. Williams on Macleod (1993), and Bliss on Frederick Banting (1984). Although a biography of Best was started in the 1950s by William R. Feasby, it was never completed. Margaret and Charley is a personal 'labour of love' by Canadian historian Henry Best, the younger of the Bests' two sons.

Although Charles Best is best known for his work with Banting, the discovery of insulin makes up less than fifty pages in this tome. The author cites the existing histories of the discovery and goes on to write that instead of restating existing research, 'contemporary letters and documents are cited extensively. Charles Best's own account is obviously central to this telling of the drama, along with his views on the roles of others.' Best uses diaries, scrapbooks, and his father's papers (currently held in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto) to tell the story of his father's career, which also included the discovery of the enzyme histaminase (1929) and the purification of the anticoagulant heparin (1935). These scientific achievements are set within the context of Charles's almost fifty-year relationship with Margaret Mahon Best, who kept a regular diary and left eighty-four volumes as a historical record. Margaret's diaries provide much of the commentary on Charles's career and family life. The book is filled with the minutiae of everyday life of the period. For example, describing the couple's wedding in 1924, Best quotes his mother: 'A dressmaker had come to the Mahons' home at 370 Brunswick Avenue to make Margaret's brocade crepe gown, long waisted in those days, with a girdle of pearl embroidery. My "something borrowed" was Ruth Green Price's beautiful train of georgette lined with pink.'

Best includes details such as the childhood illnesses that he and his elder brother Alexander (Sandy) had, the souvenirs that Margaret brought back from her extensive travels with her husband, and various bits of information about those who passed through their home or Charles's laboratory. The main difference is that among the many seemingly commonplace reminiscences is the peppering of names of renowned scientists, theatre celebrities, and political figures. For example, on their honeymoon, the newlyweds stayed with insulin pioneer Dr Elliott Joslin. Sandy's godmother was Cairine Mackay Wilson, the first woman member of the Canadian Senate. On a trip to London in late December 1933, the Bests visited 'old friends' Sir Henry Dale, the Nobel Prize-winning physiologist and his wife; Margaret goes on to list the plays they saw including Nymph Errant with Gertrude Lawrence and Reunion in Vienna with Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt.

Among the fifty-five photos are Charley and Margaret with Hollywood stars Alan Jones and Jeanette MacDonald (1937); Best sitting alongside Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King, Princess Alice, President F.D. Roosevelt, and Lord Athlone (1943); reproductions of some of Best's landscape paintings; and Best bouncing his first grandchild on his knee (1959).

All of this detail, sadly, is not adequately reflected in the truncated index. The index is organized by subcategories which are not reader-friendly. For example, for entries on Sir Henry Dale, the reader must seek out 'Mentors and...