Abstract
Nearly 200 years ago (1820), a young German physician Justinus Kerner predicted that the agent responsible for “sausage poisoning “could have therapeutic implications. The agent Clostridium botulinum was discovered at the end of the nineteenth century by the Belgian bacteriologist Emile Van Ermengem. Close to end of World War II, the toxin was isolated and purified by Lamanna and Duff and was prepared and produced for clinical use by Schantz. Allen Scott, following a series of studies in monkeys, published the first utility of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) in humans for correcting strabismus in 1980. The past 40 years witnessed the development of vast clinical indications of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) therapy. This chapter, in addition to the older historical data, also briefly discusses the contribution of some of contemporary basic scientists and clinical neurotoxicologists who are responsible for the therapeutic success of BoNT therapy in medical and surgical fields.
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Jabbari, B. (2020). The History of Botulinum Neurotoxins: From 1820 to 2020. In: Jabbari, B. (eds) Botulinum Toxin Treatment in Surgery, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50691-9_1
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