The eclipse and rehabilitation of JJR Macleod, Scotland’s insulin laureate

John JR Macleod (1876–1935,) an Aberdonian Scot who had emigrated
to North America, shared the 1923 Nobel Prize with Frederick Banting for their
discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921–22. Macleod finished his
career as Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Aberdeen from 1928
to 1935. Macleod’s posthumous reputation was deeply tarnished by the campaigns
against him carried out by his fellow laureate, Banting, and by Banting’s student
assistant during the insulin research, Charles Best. Banting’s denigration of Macleod