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The accidental rise of Botox

Botox is a toxin. It’s also an ubiquitous medical treatment.

In the early 1800s, in southwestern Germany, outbreaks of a mysterious illness spread throughout the countryside. People who came down with it had terrible symptoms. Their eyelids would droop. Their speech would slur. They’d be gripped by a paralysis that, once it reached their breathing muscles, could be fatal.

A young doctor named Justinus Kerner was called in to investigate. Kerner had decided to go into medicine after he awoke from a prophetic-feeling dream to find that a paper prescription from a nearby hospital had wafted in through the window while he was sleeping. He took it as a sign. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, he also later became famous as a romantic poet.)

Looking into the spread of the illness, Kerner documented a pattern: All the patients seem to have eaten the same food —........

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