Banting and Best’s Better Choice

Before we leave this July 27th in the rearview mirror, a brief note to commemorate the discovery of insulin on this day in 1921 by Dr. Frederick Banting, John James Macleod, Charles Best and and James Collip. I mention this largely since this has a personal dimension for me, with relatives suffering from the disease. Actually, what the scientists did was to isolate and extract insulin, which, as they rightly theorized, could then be used to treat diabetes. Prior to 1921, diabetics were under a long, slow death sentence, as they had no way to regulate their blood sugar, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas no longer functional. Now, with regular insulin injections (now produced genetically from bacteria) diabetics can live more-or-less normal lives.

Banting and Best were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1923, but they refused to patent the discovery, which could have made them very wealthy men, claiming that insulin should be available – affordable, and free if need be – to everyone who needs it.

Well, others seem not so altruistic, and insulin is now a billion-dollar business, partly due to insurance companies, and a host of other reasons. In Canada, it is not covered by MediCare, which doesn’t seem to care, either here or in the U.S. One report states that insulin prices have rise 1,123 percent in the last two decades, and I have heard anecdotes of diabetics on limited insurance plans and fixed income only giving themselves one-third a dose to ‘stretch’ out their allotment, an almost certain long-term self-euthanasia. Some few are getting rich off such desperation – to use a word of which Belloc was fond: Mamzers.

What was that about devouring the houses of widows and orphans? What about devouring widows and orphans themselves? What of the better choice of Banting and Best?

Carney’s Amoral Majority

After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→

Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

A Tale of Two Benedicts

A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→

My Name is Bernadette

April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→

The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

Saint Gemma Galgani

On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→

An Ideological and Improper Translation

I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→

Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers

Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→