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Chapter 1 - The pretherapeutic history of botulinum neurotoxin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2014

By
Frank J. Erbguth
Edited by
Daniel Truong ,
Dirk Dressler ,
Mark Hallett  and
Christopher Zachary
Frank J. Erbguth
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Nuremberg Municipal Academic Hospital, Nuremberg, Germany
Daniel Truong
Affiliation:
The Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Institute, Fountain Valley, California
Dirk Dressler
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Hannover University Medical School
Mark Hallett
Affiliation:
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC
Christopher Zachary
Affiliation:
Department of Dermatology, University of California, Irvine
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Summary

Unintended intoxication with botulinum neurotoxin (botulism) occurs only rarely, but its high fatality rate makes it a great concern for the general public and the medical community. In the USA, an average of 110 cases of botulism are reported each year. Of these, approximately 25% are food borne, 72% are infant botulism and the rest are wound botulism. Outbreaks of food-borne botulism involving two or more persons occur most years and are usually caused by eating contaminated home-canned foods.

Botulism in ancient times

Botulinum neurotoxin poisoning probably has afflicted humankind through the mists of time. As long as humans have preserved and stored food, some of the chosen conditions would be optimal for the presence and growth of the toxin-producing pathogen Clostridium botulinum: for example, the storage of ham in barrels of brine, poorly dried and stored herring, trout packed to ferment in willow baskets, sturgeon roe not yet salted and piled in heaps on old horsehides, lightly smoked fish or ham in poorly heated smoking chambers and insufficiently boiled blood sausages.

Type
Chapter
Information
Manual of Botulinum Toxin Therapy , pp. 1 - 7
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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