My Love Affair with Insulin

It all started with a chance encounter in the fall of 1935. As a second year medical student at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) with time on my hands, I conformed to the local tradition according to which “good students” would “do a laboratory,” which meant that they joined the laboratory of one of their professors and participated on a voluntary basis in whatever research was going on. This arrangement suited both parties. The professors got free manpower. The students kept out of mischief, gained experience, had fun, and (if they persevered long enough) could write up a dissertation and use it to compete for a traveling fellowship.