Recent historiography has examined the invention and introduction of insulin chiefly from the perspective of medical science. Drawing on medical sources, popular histories of insulin have often concentrated on the role of the genius-inventors who philanthropically handed over the patents for the production process to the University of Toronto and the newly founded Insulin Committee, which then controlled the patent's use in other countries. This interpretation implies that all of the problems were simply resolved when the Toronto Insulin Committee had developed a method of standardization and spread it throughout the world. In fact, the use and production of the drug in different countries turned out to be a complex process, encountering different national health systems, therapeutic cultures and economic situations.

This essay investigates how insulin was introduced and standardized in Germany. Two years after Banting and Best had discovered insulin, German newspapers were full of articles about it. A typical article began: ‘For some time, an American medication from the pancreas, insulin, has been causing the greatest interest in medical science. In certain cases of diabetes mellitus it has proved to be a real wonder drug’. Another one stated: ‘The discovery of insulin by the American researchers Macleod, Banting and Best and its utilization in the therapy of diabetes belongs to the major achievements of medical science’.