NICOLAE PAULESCU
The creator of insulin
About Nicolae Paulescu
Nicolae Constantin Paulescu was born on November 30, 1869 in Bucharest. He finished grades I-XII in the capital, and in 1888 he became a student at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. The year 1891 brought him a position at the Medical Service of the Hotel Dieu Hospital, led by the renowned professor Étienne Lancereaux. In 1892 he became an external, through a competition, of the Hospitals of Paris, so that after 2 years he would become, also through a competition, an internal at the Hospital "Notre Dame du Perpetuel Secours".
About his work
Nicolae Paulescu was a Romanian scientist who did important early work on treating diabetes. In the early 1920s, he created a substance called "pancrein" from the pancreas of animals. When he gave this to diabetic dogs, it helped lower their blood sugar levels. His experiments showed that something in the pancreas could help control diabetes, and this was an important step toward the discovery of insulin. Although other scientists later received more credit for the discovery, Paulescu's work came first and made a big contribution. His legacy is also controversial because of his political and social beliefs.
Not so many people know about Paulescu. Why is that?
Even though his work was very important in the early research on diabetes and insulin, not many people know about Nicolae Paulescu. While scientists like Frederick Banting and Charles Best are more widely recognized for discovering insulin and won a Nobel Prize, Paulescu's experiments were published earlier. He showed that a substance from the pancreas could lower blood sugar, but his contributions were overlooked for many years, partly because he worked in Romania, far from the major scientific centers of the time. Today, some people are trying to give him more credit, but his legacy remains complicated due to his political views.
Charles Best Frederick Banting