Behind Insulin: The Life and Legacy of Doctor Peter Joseph Moloney

By Mary V. Moloney

While his contributions to medicine are not widely known, he helped secure lasting fame for Sir Frederick Grant Banting and Dr. Charles Best as well as international prominence for the University of Toronto. Mary V. Moloney traces her grandfather’s interactions with historic figures and shares anecdotes from his life in this well-researched biography. From visits to his hometown in northern Ontario, his work at the University of Toronto, and his time in Berlin during the onset of World War I and Munich in 1935, you’ll gain a deep appreciation for one of medicine’s most unheralded pioneers. You’ll also find out how a boy born to immigrant parents in a small town on Georgian Bay, who lost his father at age six, and who fell in love with a beautiful woman in a foreign land could go on to become a university professor and an intellectual giant. Discover the facts Behind Insulin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483458465

Book preview

BEHIND

INSULIN

The Life and Legacy of Doctor Peter Joseph Moloney

A Man’s Catholic Faith and Bold Science

MARY V. MOLONEY

Copyright © 2016 Mary V. Moloney, B. Sc., B. Ed.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5847-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5846-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915506

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 10/13/2016

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Coming to Toronto

Chapter 2: Moloney’s First Contributions to Canadian Medical Research

Chapter 3: Letters from Europe

Chapter 4: Moloney and Production of Vaccines

Chapter 5: On the Purification of Insulin, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Toronto

Chapter 6: Recalling College Chemistry

Chapter 7: About St. Michael’s College

Chapter 8: St. Michael’s Hospital

Chapter 9: Gairdner International Award

Chapter 10: Discovery of Insulin—Fiftieth Anniversary

Chapter 11: Letters from Dr. Lou Goldsmith

Chapter 12: Tributes from Connaught

Chapter 13: Monsignor Edward A. Synan

Chapter 14: Time Line of Accomplishments

Chapter 15: Why I Am a Catholic

Chapter 16: In Prayer

Chapter 17: Reflections

Appendix A: Letters

Appendix B: Publications

Sources

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Dr. Moloney receiving the Gairdner International Award from Governor General Roland Michener, 1967

Dedication

To dear Mother St. Henry, SOLI

only daughter of Dr. Moloney,

in memoriam

Peter Joseph Moloney tribute

image2PJMtribute600grayscale.tif

Preface

Six Decades of Dedication

Behind Insulin is a celebration of the life of Dr. Peter Joseph Moloney, Canada’s preeminent chemist, biochemist, pioneering immunologist and vaccine researcher. His significant contributions in the field of medicine are not widely known, but they consist of work that extended many lives, and helped secure lasting fame for Frederick Banting and Charles Best and international prominence for the University of Toronto. A witness to the events surrounding the discovery of insulin, Dr. Moloney recalls when it was first announced; however, he left it to others to reveal his part in this historic discovery and the extraordinary influence he had on medicine and public health in Canada and around the world.

I beg you to work at this, work at this! Mother St. Henry (d. September 3, 2013), Dr. Moloney’s only daughter, first contacted me in 2009, and continued to share her desire that I begin to summarize her father’s life and work until her death in 2013. Her last message came through the Sister who attended her before she died. Approaching me after the funeral in St. Ambrose’s parish hall in Cambridge, Ontario, the Sister said that Mother St. Henry wanted the first chapter to be in Peter’s words only.

Others have also expressed interest in his life, as it was so closely associated with their own hometown and the greatest discovery in Canadian medical history.

As the Sister requested, Dr. Moloney’s words are present in Chapter 1, and beyond. There are brief explanations, photos and documents, and a short biography written by Monsignor Edward A. Synan, FRSC, professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Institute and at the University of Toronto, who knew Dr. Moloney well.

Mother St. Henry informed me, Dad said it was called Moloney insulin—said this several times. Dad’s work in Ottawa caused a stir in Toronto. In 1921 he came down from Powassan during August for a meeting at the Faculty Club, [where he] met two young men who had discovered insulin.

I was a graduate student with Dr. Moloney until I received my PhD in 1955, Chemical and Immunological Studies on Insulins. Recently I searched online for more information about him because I wanted to pass on to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren details about the person that had played such an important role in my education and my life while I can; [I] am now 82 years old. When I started working with him, he asked me to read a book, I believe it was titled Science Is a Sacred Cow. Essentially it said [to] always seek proof, [that] just because something is printed in a textbook does not mean that it is actually true. That principle and many others that I learned from him have guided me throughout my life. Even though I moved to the U.S., we corresponded until he passed away.

Dr. Moloney was probably the single most influential person in my life and I will never forget him.

—First letter received from Lou Goldsmith, Monday, July 4, 2011

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Anton Casta of St. Max Media for technical and creative assistance in establishing the original Web site, drpetermoloney.com, and for the cover design; Lou Goldsmith, PhD 1955, who discovered Dr. Moloney’s Web site in 2011 and offered friendship and practical assistance; Lauren Hanham, the goldsmith commissioned to make a gold memorial piece for Dr. Moloney; the Royal Society of Canada for granting permission to publish the only other authoritative biography of Dr. Moloney written by his friend Monsignor Edward Aloysius Synan, FRSC; Paul Ambtman, jewellery photographer, who generously donated the photo of the gold memorial piece; Dr. C. Rutty for CONTOX images; Beth, whose timely suggestion helped move this project forward; and all family members and others who offered assistance.

*  *  *

Diphtheria Toxoid in Canada, Canadian Journal of Public Health 46, 2, reproduced with permission of the Canadian Public Health Association.

Excerpts from Within Reach of Everyone reproduced with permission of the Canadian Public Health Association.

The content in Chapter 9 reproduced with permission of the Gairdner Foundation, http://www.gairdner.org.

Introduction

image3Graduationphoto.jpg

Behind Insulin is the first full-length biography of Dr. Peter Joseph Moloney, OBE, PhD, LLD, FRSC, Canada’s preeminent chemist, biochemist, pioneering immunologist and vaccine researcher. Once you have read these pages, you will wonder, Who is this man with so many great works, and why haven’t I heard of him before? Thousands of wounded soldiers who developed gas gangrene after they were injured received gas gangrene antiserum developed by Dr. Moloney, and for this work he received his first award, the Order of the British Empire in 1946. But international recognition started shortly after he was hired as the first and only biochemist for the Connaught Anti-Toxin Laboratories in Toronto, located at the University of Toronto, where he achieved the following:

• In 1921, he invented a quick-acting pH electrode, which was named the Moloney electrode, his first achievement to gain international attention, and his third publication.

• In 1922, he resolved the problem of severe reactions to insulin by developing a reaction-free insulin using benzoic acid in the world’s first successful large-scale production of insulin.

• In 1924–5, he developed the first production of diphtheria toxoid in North America, along with the intradermal Moloney Reaction Test.

• In the early 1940s, he developed a combined vaccine of diphtheria toxoid and pertussis, the first of many later combinations.

• In 1946, he developed an enzymatic method for the extraction of heparin.

• In 1950s, he with Dr. Tony Tosoni, his doctoral student, developed crystalline penicillin and, later, two new long–acting penicillins.

• In 1955, he proved that insulin was an antigen and developed sulphated insulin for insulin-resistant patients.

Above all, he was remembered for his sterling character and was regarded highly by many as a teacher and mentor.

Moloney was interviewed in 1974, but the transcript text that he edited was filed in archives, meaning that his life was nearly forgotten. His only daughter, Mary, motivated by her great esteem for him, requested that I begin to write a book about him, and so the interview transcript became the framework for this book. Moloney also wrote briefly about Powassan, wrote his family history, and composed a number of letters, besides his prolific scientific publications.

His youth was spent in Powassan, Ontario, a time when he was not much interested in books, except the enormous volume Boy’s Own Annual kept at the tiny library in Frederick’s Tailor Shop a few doors from his home. Massive, dark covers with gold embossed writing and stirring images of charging knights and heraldic devices, the BOA was a British publication, in which there were, along with other reading matter, articles on how to make things. This was the book that he pored over, perhaps the origin of his interest in practical projects. One look at the contents of this volume and one understands how well suited it is for boys, there is nothing like it today.

He was enthusiastic for the town’s sports teams, especially the lacrosse team. His daily activities would have included assisting his widowed mother and sisters with the daily chores at the Queen’s Hotel, purchased by his father Thomas Henry Moloney in 1893. When Catholic priests would visit, he accompanied them in their horse-drawn vehicles for home visits. There we were, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, and ‘us.’ He excelled in math from an early age, which skill was further developed in college and beyond, leading to a mastery of mental calculation rarely seen. He installed a room service bell and buzzer system in the hotel. By the time he reached sixteen, he was the quintessential frontier Canadian: grandson of Catholic Irish immigrants who came over during the potato famine and settled in Barrie, Ontario; raised in Powassan by a widowed mother; showed impressive physical strength; had valuable self-discipline; and was ready to meet the challenges of an opportunity for higher education in Toronto. Someone gave him that opportunity, since the income from the hotel was not remarkable. This is the account of what he did with that opportunity:

The life of Peter Moloney would be marked by deep loyalties and constant wonder. He was loyal to his God, his Church, his family, his friends and colleagues; he was loyal to his country. In his work he marvelled at the secrets to be unlocked in creation.

—Mother St. Henry Moloney

Dr. Peter Moloney, a retired research scientist, played an important role in the development of insulin

(from St. Michael’s College Alumni Newsletter [fall 1982]).

Chapter 1: Coming to Toronto

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Family History

I was born in Penetanguishene in 1891 in the month of June. Two years later, we moved to Powassan, where my father had bought a hotel. As a small boy, I was glad that we had come to Powassan because it seemed obvious to me that Powassan was the centre of the world. After all, the sky came down evenly all around, and our house sat in the dead centre.

My youngest grandparent, Anastasia Kearns, my mother’s mother, was born in 1828 in Ireland in Arklow, a fishing town in County Wicklow. Her father, a great-grandfather of mine, was a market gardener and sold his produce in Dublin, about forty miles north, where he went to market once a week, making a long journey by horse. He, with his wife and children, emigrated to Canada and settled on a farm about eight miles west of Orillia near the village of Warminster. He was one of the early European settlers in Simcoe County. His daughter, my grandmother, was married in Ontario to John Byrnes, also from Arklow. The record of their marriage is in St. Michael’s Cathedral, Toronto. They, in turn, settled on a farm near Warminster. My father’s parents, John Moloney and Ellen Kelly, came from the town of Labasheeda in County Clare on Ireland’s west coast. The town sits on the north shore of the estuary of the Shannon. Shortly after their marriage, they came to Canada and settled in the town of Barrie. The small, white-stuccoed house on Penetang (Mulcaster) Street in Barrie in which they lived still exists, or did until very recently.

My [paternal] grandfather, John Moloney, had a lime kiln. He was a man of some education, and my paternal grandmother was a clever woman. She was a skilled dressmaker, as is evident in the attractive costumes that her daughters—my aunts—wore in the tintype photographs I inherited.

She was also something of a cook. Among other items, she made a delicious dressing for a goose, so much so that one would ask for more dressing rather than for more meat. The method for making this dressing was a strictly kept family secret. In the case of my good wife, an American, and hence a foreigner, the secret was not disclosed until several years after our wedding.

After all, my father’s parents were Celtic people, and among Celtic families, whether they be Irish or Scottish, family secrets are not easily disclosed. I think it is now time that the secret recipe for goose dressing be made known. In passing, insofar as I know, only one person in the world today knows the recipe and has made it—my son Oliver, a priest.

Here is the secret recipe. It is called sweetbread dressing and contains the sweetbread or pancreas of the goose. One must have a freshly killed, preferably mature bird, and in drawing the entrails, one finds the pancreas between a loop in the intestines, just below the gizzard. It is almost diamond-shaped, four to six inches long in the goose, and pinkish white in colour; it is easily removed. It is then cut up and added raw to the dressing that has been prepared in the following way.

The giblets of the goose are boiled until tender, [and] then finely diced and mixed with breadcrumbs, mashed potatoes, a small amount of precooked onion, a quarter of a teaspoonful of fowl dressing and a little salt. More recently, an addition has been four small cooked and diced pork sausages. The bird is then lightly stuffed and is ready for the oven. The dressing is very good and moist, not at all dry.

Thanks to certain enzymes in the raw pancreas that activate as heat increases, up to the point where they are rendered inactive by too high a temperature, certain changes take place. One enzyme converts some of the starch in the bread and potatoes into glucose, producing a mild, attractive, sweetish taste. Other enzymes partly break down some of the protein in the dressing, probably rendering the dressing moister than one would expect.

My two grandmothers lived to be old women, and as a young man, I talked with both of them. I never knew my grandfathers. They lived to be old men, and I fancy that each was older than his wife.

I was born in the reign of Queen Victoria in Simcoe County. My parents were born in the reign of Queen Victoria in the same county. All my grandparents were born in the reign of George IV and were buried in Simcoe County. My great-grandparents were buried there as well. So, I can say: this Ontario, this Canada, is my land.

Here I am now, living in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and as a young man, I talked with my two grandmothers, who were born in the early part of the nineteenth century. I have great-grandparents who were buried in Simcoe County and who were born in the eighteenth century. I look forward to my children, and grandchildren, already adults, who will be living in the twenty-first century. It is as if I were in touch with four centuries.

Some Memories of Old Powassan

When we arrived [there], Powassan was a small village, the centre of a fertile farming country. It is interesting to speculate about why Powassan is where it is. For one, the railway was extended from Gravenhurst to Nipissing Junction in 1885.

Even before the extension of the railway, some families were established on farms in the general district. By the village site ran a good stream, Genesee Creek, suitable for floating logs down to the South River and on to Lake Nipissing. Also, the stream could serve as a source of water power, and this indeed was eventually used by Mr. Alfred Mitchell to operate a sawmill. Later on, another man, whose name I have forgotten, had a water mill at the junction of the creek and the main street (today’s King Street) that leads north. I remember that, among other machines in his mill operated by water power, there was a wood-turning lathe, which he used, for example, to shape wood into artistic forms.

I remember my first day of school. I was five years old, and I can recall vividly my father and mother standing side by side—young people they were—smiling as my father explained to me how to ask permission to leave the room by raising the arm with the index and middle finger in the form of a V.

Going down to the school, I met Joe Grawey, who must have been about ten years old. He said, Are you going to school, Pete?

Yes, and I’m going into Porter’s store to buy a slate and pencil.

He said, I’ll come in to help you. The slate and pencil must have cost five or ten cents.

I finally arrived at school. There were two rooms and two teachers, each one having four classes. My teacher was Miss McEachern. The classes were dealt with by calling each class, in turn, to come to the front and stand in line. The teacher then gave some instruction; we were sent back to our desks to study what we had been told. Then at the next session, we were first questioned about our lessons, new instructions were given, and we were again returned to our desks. The system, I think, had some advantages, for we probably did more listening to the lessons of the higher classes than we did studying the work we were assigned to do. Stan Porter is the only member of my class whose name I recall.

The first morning I made sure to use the signal my father had taught me. So I raised my arm and showed the V sign. Miss McEachern said, You may leave the room, Peter. I soon learned that simply raising the arm was not the drill; the arm also must be shaken violently as if for an emergency. There were two outdoor privies, one for the girls and one for the boys, and I had been instructed which was which. Before leaving the privy, I became tangled up when trying to adjust myself, and as a consequence, I had to return to the classroom holding up my