Insulin in a Toronto Basement
Insulin in a Toronto Basement — an invention story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder Inventions.
Page 1
The crate was heavier than it looked, waist-high and slatted with a dozen wire cages stacked inside, and the two men lurched across Front Campus with it swinging between them like a drunk's coffin. Banting's big hands gripped the near end, knuckles white, boots sinking into the soft new grass. Best, lanky and quick, backpedaled ahead, trying to read the ground. Then the bottom slat cracked clean through. Cages tumbled, lids sprang, and a brindle hound shot out low and fast toward the traffic circling Queen's Park. 'He's into the road!' Banting bellowed, dropping his end, boards clattering and bouncing across the lawn. Best was already running, long legs eating the grass, dodging an elm trunk, diving the last yard to pin the dog by the collar inches from the curb as a delivery wagon rattled past. Banting came pounding after, scooping loose boards under one arm, scattering apologies at a startled gardener. The hound thrashed once under Best's grip, then went still, panting, pinned flat to the turf.
Page 2
The attic air sits thick as soup, thirty-five degrees and rising, trapped under the roof slates with nowhere to go. Banting hauls the last galvanised bucket up the narrow stair, knuckles white on the wire handle, ice shifting and clinking inside, sweat soaking through his collarless shirt. Best climbs behind him two steps at a time, his own bucket swinging, plimsolls silent on the worn treads. At the top Banting sets his bucket down hard and throws himself at the swollen sash window, shoving with both palms. It won't budge, paint-sealed and warped in the heat. He grabs a scalpel from the tray, rams the handle into the frame's seam, and wrenches. The window bangs open so suddenly he staggers back, his boot catching the bucket rim. Meltwater sheets across the tilted floorboards, running fast under the operating table and pooling at Best's feet. Best jumps back, grabbing the table leg to stop it sliding on the wet wood, while Banting swears and drops to one knee to right the bucket before more ice spills loose.
Page 3
Lightning cracked over College Street and the tarpaulin over the dog pens tore loose with a sound like a gunshot, snapping end over end into the dark. Rain sheeted sideways across the rooftop. One of the pens stood open-topped now, and a yellow collie, soaked flat and frantic, squeezed through a gap in the wire and scrambled out onto the parapet gutter, four storeys above the streetcar wires below. Banting lunged for the flapping canvas, throwing his whole weight on it, wrapping loops of surgical cord round the pen bars to lash it down before the wind could take it again. Best didn't wait — he swung onto the iron fire-ladder bolted to the brick and went up it hand over hand, plimsolls slipping on the wet rungs, until he was level with the gutter. He reached out, caught the dog by the scruff, and hauled it bodily back over the parapet lip against his chest, climbing down one-handed with the animal shaking under his arm while the storm tried to peel him off the ladder.
Page 4
The yard was frozen into ribs of grey ice, ruts frozen hard as iron under the hanging carcasses swinging from their hooks. Banting threw his whole weight behind the handcart, boots skidding, while Best hauled from the front, breath smoking. The galvanised tub, waist-high and brimming with chilled calf pancreases, rocked with every jolt. Then the front wheel dropped into a drain channel cut across the stones and the cart lurched sideways, the tub sliding free of its lashings. Banting dropped the handles and threw himself flat across the slush, arms out, catching the tub's rim against his chest before it could tip among the rows of dangling carcasses. Best scrambled round, grabbing the far edge, hauling it level while Banting's elbows ground into the ice. For a moment neither moved, chests heaving, the tub balanced between them. Then together they wrestled it upright onto the cobbles, glands intact, steam rising off their shoulders into the cold air.
Page 5
The stocky tweed-coated man was mid-sentence, big reddened hand slapping the hanging chart for emphasis, when the paper tore loose from its hooks with a crack like a snapped branch. It unspooled in a long hissing sheet down the raked aisle steps, flapping end over end. The thin young man in the navy sweater dropped flat and scrambled after it on all fours, knees skidding on the wooden treads, stopwatch swinging wildly off his neck as he clawed the paper flat before it slid under the front row of chairs. Behind them the upright grey-suited man did not wait for order to be restored — he hauled a chair out from the aisle, climbed up onto the seat in his polished boots, and reached overhead to re-hang the torn grommets onto the bent hooks himself, pince-nez swinging loose against his waistcoat. Once it held, he snatched the pointer from the ledge and took over the lecture without missing a beat, tapping the restored chart crisply while the audience below murmured and craned to see.
Page 6
The caged bulb swings on its wire, throwing shadows over brine tanks taller than a man's waist as Collip hunches over his scavenged still — bicycle pump wheezing, glass tubing rigged with wax and string, the brown sludge dripping slow into a flask. Suddenly it runs clear. Banting lunges forward, grabbing the straps of Collip's rubber apron, hauling him up off his stool. "What strength! Tell me the strength, man!" Collip twists free, slamming back against the ten-gallon carboy standing on the stone floor, taller than his own hip — it topples, shattering, alcohol sheeting across the flagstones in a spreading lake thick with glass splinters. Best drops the beaker he's holding and scrambles through the flood, grabbing Banting's shoulder and wrenching him backward. Macleod seizes Collip's other arm, hauling the smaller man clear of the wreckage, both men skidding on the wet stone as the caged bulb swings wildly overhead, lighting the whole basement in jerking arcs.
Page 7
Snow came sideways off the lake, hissing against the iron canopy of the ambulance bay. The stretcher bearers lost their footing on the iced step and the canvas frame jolted hard, nearly pitching the boy sideways off its sagging pole. Collip lunged in, both hands grabbing the slack canvas, bracing the pole against his own hip to stop it folding. The wind got under the crimson blanket and tore it loose in one gust, sending it skating across the slush toward the gutter. Banting broke into a dead run, boots slipping, and threw himself down to pin the blanket before it reached the drain grate. He came up soaked to the elbow, hauling it back over the boy's shaking shoulders. Best hauled the stretcher's front end up the last step, shouting over the wind. Macleod stood under the canopy directing with sharp jabs of his cane, refusing to let anyone set the boy down until the doors were fully open. Inside, the warmth hit them like a wall as the doors slammed shut behind the last struggling orderly.
Page 8
The boy lies belly-down across a hip-high iron bed, pyjama trousers tugged below his bony hips, while the stocky man in the stained white coat drives the needle into one wasted buttock, then the other, pressing the plunger through fifteen cc of murky brown extract. The thin young man grips the boy's thin shoulders flat against the sheet, stopwatch swinging loose from its lace as he leans his weight down. By evening the injection sites have swollen into hot red abscesses, and the grey-suited man snaps his pince-nez up to peer close, frowning hard. The small ginger-haired chemist hovers with cotton wool, dabbing at the heat rising under the skin. When the thin young man turns too fast to fetch fresh gauze, his elbow catches the enamel tray on the bedside table — it crashes to the tiled floor and skates the length of the aisle, syringes scattering and ringing against the iron bed-legs, everyone freezing at the clatter before scrambling after the rolling metal.
Page 9
The small ginger-haired chemist shoulders through the laboratory door with the flask held high, water-clear fluid sloshing to its stopper, and his boots go out from under him on the wet tile. He pitches forward with a shout. The tall thin figure lunges and traps the flask against his own chest before it can shatter, the stopwatch on its lace swinging wild. The gurney bangs through behind them, the straw-haired boy small under a crimson blanket, wheeled past the chalked board where the figure 520 still glares. The stocky tweed-coated man drives the needle home, quick and sure; the boy barely flinches. The upright man in the wing collar stands at the board with chalk in hand, watching the clock on the wall. Two hours crawl past. Then he wipes the sponge across the slate, and 520 becomes 120 in one dragging stroke. The boy pushes himself upright against the pillow, blinking.
Page 10
The crane groaned overhead, hauling a crate the size of a steamer trunk up off the planking, and the stocky tweed-coated man hauled down on the guide rope to keep it from swinging into the warehouse wall. Gulls screamed over the grain elevators as the lean sweatered figure wheeled the handcart flush to the gangway rail, stopwatch bouncing against his chest. The neat grey-suited man checked a manifest against the stencilled lettering on each box, calling the count aloud over the dockside din, while the small ginger-haired figure in the rubber apron steadied a crate teetering on the cart's edge before it could drop onto the stone. And the boy — no longer the wasted thing of January, cheeks filled, legs steady under him — bent his knees, gripped the last small crate with both arms, and swung it up the gangway into the waiting stevedore's hands, the crimson blanket folded neat over his forearm the whole time.
About this story
- Audience: general readers
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder Inventions
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