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43 NOBEL PRIZES IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year for out- standing discoveries in the fields of life sciences and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swe- dish chemist Alfred Nobel. He was perso- nally interested in experimental physiology and wanted to establish a prize for progress through scientific discoveries in laboratories. The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony takes place on 10 December in Stockholm. Up to 2013 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Med- icine has been awarded 104 times to 204 Nobel Lau- reates. The first Nobel Prize in this field was awarded in 1901 to German physiologist and bacteriologist Emil Adolf von Behring for the development of the diphtheria [dɪfˈθɪəriə] and tetanus [ˈtetənəs] vaccines. He was widely known as a "saviour of children," as diphtheria used to be a major cause of child death. His tetanus vaccine helped to save the lives of millions of wounded soldiers during the First World War (1914 – 1918). To date, the youngest Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine is Canadian scientist Frederick G. Banting, who was the co-discoverer of insulin, a hormone of critical importance in regulating blood sugar levels. He was only 32 years old when he was awarded the prize for the discovery of insulin in 1923. Before in- sulin was discovered, people with diabetes didn't live for long; there wasn't much doctors could do for them. The most effective treatment was to put pa- tients with diabetes on very strict diets with minimal carbohydrate intake. This could buy patients a few extra years but couldn't save them. People with Type 1 diabetes did not survive for more than a few weeks or months with the disease. Injections of in- sulin were the first effective treatment for diabetes, saving millions of lives worldwide.