The discovery of insulin was no doubt a major breakthrough in medicine—prior to its discovery, diabetes sufferers often died at a young age. But while Canadian scientists Sir Frederick G. Banting and Charles H. Best, along with their colleagues, often are credited with the hormone’s discovery and isolation, Romanian physiologist Nicolas C. Paulescu appears to have beaten them to it. Paulescu isolated a substance called “pancrein,” presumably insulin, in 1916, but he was soon after recruited to serve in World War I. He finally published his findings in 1921, though they were overshadowed by the release of the Canadians’ report early the following year.