Background
Robert Russell Bensley was born on November 13, 1867, in Hamilton, Canada. Bensley was the third of six children born to Robert Daniel Bensley, a prosperous farmer and his mother, Caroline Vandeleur.
1952
The Award of the Banting Medal was granted to Professor Robert Russell Bensley at the Twelfth Annual Meeting, American Diabetes Association, Chicago on June 7, 1952.
1952
The Award of the Banting Medal was granted to Professor Robert Russell Bensley issued by the American Diabetes Association.
Professor Robert Russell Bensley
Professor Robert Russell Bensley
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
In 1889 Bensley entered the medical department of the University of Toronto; three years later he received the Bachelor of Medicine.
Collegiate Institute, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
In 1883 Bensley graduated from the Collegiate Institute in Hamilton.
Robert Russell Bensley was born on November 13, 1867, in Hamilton, Canada. Bensley was the third of six children born to Robert Daniel Bensley, a prosperous farmer and his mother, Caroline Vandeleur.
In 1883 Bensley graduated from the Collegiate Institute in Hamilton, a notable achievement in that he had walked the two and a half miles (each way) up and down the “mountain” (as the Niagara escarpment is called there) each day and had also managed to do his share of the farm chores.
The following year, Bensley entered University College of the University of Toronto. His academic career was almost ended when, on a hunting trip, he received a shotgun wound in the left leg that severed an artery. After a year of convalescence, Bensley managed to return to University College, and upon his graduation, he received the Governor General’s Medal in both arts and sciences.
In 1889 Bensley entered the medical department of the University of Toronto; three years later he received the Bachelor of Medicine.
After receiving the Bachelor of Medicine degree from the University of Toronto in 1892, Bensley became an assistant demonstrator in biology there upon graduation. Four years later, in a paper that won high praise from Sir William Osier, he showed clearly the replenishment of the cells of the gastric mucosa.
Bensley joined the anatomy department of the University of Chicago in 1901, becoming its acting head in the same year and its director in 1907. He differentially stained the cells of the islands of Langerhans in 1906, an achievement that led to Banting’s discovery of insulin. Among his other accomplishments were confirmation of the presence of the Golgi apparatus of cells in 1910 and, with B. C. H. Harvey in 1912, the demonstration of the mechanism of the gastric secretion of hydrochloric acid.
Bensley pioneered in the study of cell organelles. I. Altman, A. Fisher, W. B. Hardy, and L. Michaelis had previously described mitochondria but, in 1934, with his student I. Gersh, Bensley modified Altman’s freezing-drying technique so that mitochondria could be isolated and subjected to microchemical analysis.
During his twenty-six years at Chicago, Bensley brought to the department of anatomy C. Judson Herrick, George W. Bartelmez, Alexander Maximov, Charles Swift, and William Bloom.
Bensley was a member of the Association American Anatomists (president 1918), of the Alpha Kappa Kappa. He also held a membership at the Quadrangle club.
From his mother, Caroline Vandeleur, Bensley acquired his Irish wit, his love of music and the fine arts, and his talent for languages (he mastered French, German, Italian, and Spanish).
During his convalescence, working in his mother’s kitchen, he learned to stain tissues obtained from farm animals with dyes made from local barks and herbs. He prepared histological slides so well that he was not only excused from the histology laboratory at medical school but was also congratulated for his excellent preparations.
Physical Characteristics: While studying at the College of the University of Toronto, Bensley received a shotgun wound in the left leg that severed an artery on a hunting trip. The limb was amputated twice, first below the knee and later above the knee, when gangrene set in.
Robert Bensley married Cariella May on September 12, 1892. Their children were Caroline May, Alma Gladys, and Robert Daniel. Bensley’s daughter, Caroline May, was for many years technical assistant in the department of anatomy at the University of Chicago. His son, Robert (husband of Sylvia Holton Bensley), has contributed much to color photography as well as aiding his father in some of the latter’s endeavors in photomicrography.