Moses Barron, MD (November 8, 1883-December 22, 1974)
submitted by Alan D. Rogol, MD, Ph.D
Moses Barron MD, a Russian immigrant, graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1911 became an instructor in Pathology at the medical school. After WW I he returned to the University and wrote a landmark paper “The relation of the islets of Langerhans to diabetes with special reference to cases of pancreatic lithiasis” (Surg Gynec Obstet 1920; 31:437). In the review of the literature he noted experiments in rabbits in which ligation of the pancreatic duct led over weeks to scarcely any parenchyma, but normal islets and neither hyperglycemia nor glycosuria in the rabbits.
This was the seminal paper that led Banting to the experimental paradigm for the discovery of insulin in 1921 (J Lab Clin Med 1922; 7:251).