The poor Hygiene of Yesteryear
If you had been alive at the turn of the last century, you would have had to live with the chances of contracting some pretty gruesome illnesses. In the early 1900’s, there were no antibiotics to treat infections and general surgery used very basic hygiene compared to today’s standards. Infections were passed easily through this poor hygiene, and bacteria could be air born, passed through direct contact with someone already infected, or through consuming infected water and food. Deaths from illnesses such as typhoid, cholera, diphtheria, polio and tuberculosis were high. Thankfully, our understanding of the bacteria responsible for these illnesses is now good enough to have controlled or eradicated many of these diseases from the developed world.
Botulism
Botulism is an infection that killed many people in the days of having no refrigeration and little concept of good hygiene standards. It was spread mainly through poorly prepared meat such as pork sausage products (the Latin word for sausage is botulus), and consumption of the infected meat led to a very gruesome illness. Botulism was the kind of food poisoning that led to a possible death. In modern times, botulism is very rare thanks to good hygiene, but there are still cases of the illness. There have been 33 cases of botulism in the UK since 1989. Three forms are commonly found; infant botulism, food-borne botulism, and wound botulism.
Botulism is caused when something contaminated by spores from a strain of bacteria called clostridium botulinum is consumed or enters the body through an open wound; this could be dirt, dust or food. The bacteria colonises the body and multiplies. As part of the bacterial life process, it produces substances called neurotoxins. Clostridium botulinum produces several of these neurotoxins. As the amounts of toxin builds up they begin to attack the body, causing the symptoms to appear. In food-borne and infant botulism this takes between 12 and 36 hours and in wound botulism around 10 days.
The symptoms begin with the neurotoxins attacking the nerves which supply the facial muscles, eye muscles and the muscles responsible for chewing and swallowing. This leads to difficulty in swallowing, blurred vision, and facial weakness. As the neurotoxins take a greater hold, the body is also affected by paralysis, eventually leading to death.
The Birth of Botox
Scientists took an interest in the neurotoxins produced by Clostridium botulinum back in the 1940’s. At that point in time, there were no plans to use the neurotoxins for any good outcome; World War II was the driving force for the development of chemical and biological warfare. The botulinum toxins were, and still are, the most powerful neurotoxins known to man. During the war, the Americans had plans to use the neurotoxin as a weapon. Thankfully this never happened and instead, scientists turned their attention to using the toxin for better causes. The first instance of medical use came in 1953 (the same year that the DNA double helix was discovered by Watson and Crick), when physiologist Dr. Vernon Brooks used botulinum toxin type A to relax a hyperactive muscle. In the 1960’s type A toxin was being tested in monkeys to treat strabismus, or crossed eyes. But it was in the 1980’s that Botox really became a focus for the medical world, when research found Botox to be effective for not just strabismus but a whole host of muscle spasms including those in the face and neck, blepharospasm (eyelid spasms), and spasms of the larynx (vocal cord muscles).
In the late 1980’s, the company Allergan acquired the rights to the distribution of the botulinum toxin and later, the company which produced it. They renamed the pharmaceutical which comes in the form of a crystallised powder as Botox, and began to market the product to the medical world.
Botox Today
Since Botox was first marketed it has grown from strength to strength, as medical professionals have researched its uses and found a whole range of disorders which benefit from treatment with Botox. Botox might well have a name for itself as a cosmetic treatment to relax the muscles of the face and cause lines to diminish, but there are a great many other uses for the toxin. Administered in tiny amounts which are unable to cause the original symptoms of botulism, instead the Botox treatment simply targets the muscles around the injection site. This makes it useful for treating small areas that may be affected by muscle spasms. Examples of medical Botox uses include hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating), excessive drooling, overactive bladder syndrome, muscle contractions following a stroke or spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy and other genetic disorders, blepharospasm, dystopia, facial and body twitches, voice box spasms, and cosmesis (the cosmetic treatment of lines on the face). Botox has proved itself as a miracle treatment for a range of disorders, and the name has earned a great deal of respect across the medical world.