Group - Botulinum toxin

Botulinum toxin is a medication and a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and is held to be the most toxic substance known to mankind with an LD50 of roughly 0.005-0.05 µg/kg. Despite its greatest known toxic effect, it is also used in very small doses to treat muscle spasms[citation needed]. Between 1817 and 1822, the German physician and poet Justinus Kerner described botulinum toxin as a "sausage poison" and "fatty poison", , as this bacterium often caused poisoning by growing in improperly handled or prepared meat products. It was Kerner who first conceived a possible therapeutic use of botulinum toxin. In 1870, MĂĽller, another German physician, coined the name botulism, from Latin botulus = "sausage". In 1897, Emile van Ermengem identified the bacterium Clostridium botulinum to be the producer of botulinum toxin. In 1928 Snipe and Hermann Sommer for the first time purified the toxin. In 1949, Burgen's group discovered that botulinium toxin blocks neuromuscular transmission. In the late 1960s Allan Scott and Edward Schantz were the first to work on a standardized botulinum toxin preparation for therapeutic purposes. Other bacteria that produce botulinum toxin are Clostridium butyricum, C.baratii and C.argentinense.