42 NATIONAL TRENDS IN BIOLOGY 



months of the war, with the result that their reports show 

 96,000 cases of the disease, of which 12,000 resulted 

 fatally. 



One should mention here, also, the discovery of insulin 

 by Banting, which is of far-reaching medical import. The 

 story of this piece of research, which ultimately culmi- 

 nated in the discovery of insulin, according to a corre- 

 spondent, had "a long background of trials as between the 

 known facts of sugar reduction in the body, the immediate 

 necessities of diabetic patients, the existence of corrective 

 substances in the pancreas, and above all, the clinical 

 failure of gross pancreatic secretion. It was the idea of 

 utilizing pancreatic material before the normal, external 

 secreting cells had developed in the young, coupled with 

 some highly practical knowledge of domesticated animals, 

 that gave Banting his opportunity." 



F. d'Herrelle's discovery of the bacteriophage, the 

 enemy of germs, a "parasite upon a parasite" and not a 

 chemical something, also is considered of possible impor- 

 tance for the future. Then, too, the extremely important 

 and almost exhaustive researches of Maud Slye upon 

 over 50,000 mice, has demonstrated at least one thing in 

 regard to cancer — that both resistance and susceptibility 

 to that dread disease are hereditary in the animals 

 studied. 



With this little summary of the outstanding biological 

 work of our own generation, we may pass on to what 

 problems the biologists themselves feel have been actu- 

 ally solved during this period, and try to ascertain 



