Who first discovered Botulinum toxin?
Botulinum toxin
Émile van Ermengem
In 1895 (seventy-five years later), Émile van Ermengem, professor of bacteriology and a student of Robert Koch, correctly described Clostridium botulinum as the bacterial source of the toxin. Thirty-four attendees at a funeral were poisoned by eating partially salted ham, an extract of which was found to cause botulism-like paralysis in laboratory animals. Van Ermengem isolated and grew the bacterium, and described its toxin,[41] which was later purified by P Tessmer Snipe and Hermann Sommer.[42]