Nicolae Constantin Paulescu (1869-1931) était un médecin et physiologiste roumain, formé en France auprès d’Étienne Lancereaux, qui décrivit l’effet hypoglycémiant d’extraits pancréatiques quelques mois avant Frederick G. Banting et le groupe de l’université de Toronto (Canada), alors que Banting fut d’emblée distingué par le prix Nobel de physiologie ou médecine. Les travaux expérimentaux de Paulescu tardèrent à être reconnus, en dépit de ses protestations auprès du comité du Prix Nobel. Les tentatives de réhabilitation internationale échouèrent en raison de ses engagements nationalistes et antisémites.

Nicolae Paulescu (1869-1931) was a romanian physiologist, professor of medicine. He enrolled the medical school of Paris and worked until 1900 with Étienne Lancereaux, the father of the ‘pancreatic’ diabetes. Back in Romania, he obtained an active pancreatic extract in 1916, and published its hypoglycemic effects in 1921, a few months before Frederick G. Banting and the Toronto University team. The latter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923. Paulescu wrote to the Nobel Prize Committee claiming his priority, without results. Several attempts to correct the ‘historical error’ and to give an official international recognition to Paulescu’s work failed mainly because of his political national activism and antisemitic views.