, is preserved under the
Ontario Heritage Act, with a commemorative plaque from the government|245x245px Banting was born on November 14, 1891, in his family's farmhouse in
Essa, Ontario, two miles from nearby
Alliston. He was the youngest of five children of William Thompson Banting, a farmer in
New Tecumseth, and Margaret Grant, the daughter of a
mill manager. The Bantings were a financially stable family of British and
Northern Irish origin. Banting's distant relative, the London-based undertaker
William Banting, popularised a weight-loss diet in 1864, and the word "Banting" entered the
Oxford English Dictionary as its description. His mother's relatives, the Grants, were of
Scottish descent. With his family being located within a secure rural community, Banting was raised in prosperous circumstances. He was often called "Fred" or "Freddie." Farm life largely defined most of his boyhood. He felt excluded from his siblings, all multiple years his senior, and recalled that "my older brothers could not be bothered with me for the most part." When he began schooling at the age of seven in Alliston, Banting was a shy, asocial boy who tired of the attendance and was bullied frequently. Early difficulties with spelling ensured poor marks in exams: "I simply could not spell. Every word seemed to have about three ways of spelling. It was a guess and I invariably guessed wrong." He later attributed these experiences as being the product of an
inferiority complex. During his childhood, Banting devoted himself to farmwork, grew close with his mother, and sympathised with animals in the absence of other company. Marion Walwyn, a cousin who first met Banting in 1901, recalled that "we sat together in the swing in our yard. In an hour he didn't say one word." He continued to struggle in school and stubbornly resisted being disciplined there. After one incident, he resolved never to continue his education but was convinced otherwise by his father. Banting's grandfather, John Banting, had urged his own children to be educated; the philosophy had influenced William, who offered to provide a fund to his sons when they turned twenty-one. In contrast to his brothers, who spent the inheritance towards their own farms, Frederick would use it towards matriculation. In his late teenage years, Banting grew into a tall man with engagements in school
football and
baseball teams. Both his mother and father hoped that he would find a vocation in the
Methodist ministry. He passed physics and chemistry during junior
matriculation examinations in 1909, but repeated English and was required to undertake
French and
Latin. The next year, he narrowly passed Latin but failed French and, for a second time, English composition. The principal later remembered his repeated efforts: "We would not have picked him for one on whom fame should settle. He was a white boy, a right boy."
College and service years Banting finally passed examinations in July 1910. He stated on his application to university that he wished to be a teacher, although he also harbored aspirations of becoming a doctor. He toured the
Canadian West for the summer, traveling to
Winnipeg and
Calgary, before enrolling at the
University of Toronto, where he entered the General Arts course at
Victoria College. Despite hard work, Banting failed his first year, but decided to become a doctor and returned to repeat the year. He petitioned to join the medical program in February 1912 and was accepted. In September, he dropped out of Victoria College to begin medical school at the University of Toronto. Banting established himself in medical school by working diligently. His roommate, Sam Graham, remembered him for studying late into the night. Besides being a successful
rugby player, however, he was otherwise undistinguished. His grades—now without the burden of language courses—saw a marked improvement, averaging approximately a B, an above-average score. Summers were spent returning to work at the farm. At Toronto's
Faculty of Medicine, Banting specialised in surgery. At the onset of
World War I, Banting, along with most Canadian men, sought to enlist in the army. He attempted to enter the
Canadian Expeditionary Force on August 16, 1914, the day after Canada's
declaration of war, and then again in October, but was refused twice due to poor vision. In his third year of medical school Banting successfully joined the
Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps in 1915 and was commissioned a
private, then promoted to sergeant. He trained at a camp at
Niagara Falls for the summer before his fourth year of school. The university accelerated the class by condensing the fifth year of medical school during the summer of 1916. The curriculum placed more emphasis on
surgical procedure and trauma; a lecture dedicated to the treatment of diabetes derived itself from
Frederick Madison Allen of the
Rockefeller Institute, who recommended that diabetics be placed on a
starvation diet for minimum
metabolization. Banting's fourth year was committed to clinical work at
Toronto General Hospital. Under the guidance of Clarence L. Starr, the chief surgeon at the
Hospital for Sick Children, Banting gained training as an undergraduate
house surgeon. By 1915, he had definitively resolved to practice surgery, performing his first operation—the drainage of a soldier's
abscess—next winter. On December 9, 1916, Banting graduated with his
Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.) and reported for military duty the next day. He studied
orthopedic medicine and, in 1919–1920, was Resident Surgeon at
The Hospital for Sick Children. Banting was unable to gain a place on the hospital staff and so he decided to move to
London, Ontario, to set up a medical practice. From July 1920 to May 1921, he continued his general practice, while teaching orthopedics and
anthropology part-time at the
University of Western Ontario in London because his medical practice had not been particularly successful. From 1921 to 1922 he lectured in
pharmacology at the University of Toronto. He received his M.D. degree in 1922, and was also awarded a gold medal. == Medical research ==