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1 - The pretherapeutic history of botulinum toxin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

By
Frank J. Erbguth
Edited by
Daniel Truong ,
Dirk Dressler  and
Mark Hallett
Daniel Truong
Affiliation:
Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center
Dirk Dressler
Affiliation:
Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
Mark Hallett
Affiliation:
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC
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Summary

Unintended intoxication with botulinum toxin (botulism) occurs only rarely, but its high fatality rate makes it a great concern for those in the general public and in the medical community. In the United States 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 toxin poisoning probably has afflicted humankind through the mists of time. As long as humans have preserved and stored food, some of the chosen conditions were 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.

However, in ancient times there was no general knowledge about the causal relationship between the consumption of spoiled food and a subsequent fatal paralytic disease, nowadays recognized as botulism. Only some historical sources reflect a potential understanding of the life-threatening consumption of food intoxicated with botulinum toxin.

Type
Chapter
Information
Manual of Botulinum Toxin Therapy , pp. 1 - 8
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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