Botulism is a rare but potentially life-threatening neuroparalytic syndrome 
resulting from the action of a neurotoxin elaborated by the microorganism 
Clostridium botulinum. This disease has a lengthy history; the first 
investigation of botulism occurred in the 1820s with a case report on hundreds 
of patients with "sausage poisoning" in a southern German town. Several decades 
later in Belgium, the association was demonstrated between a neuromuscular 
paralysis and ham infected by a spore forming bacillus that was isolated from 
the ham. The organism was named Bacillus botulinus after the Latin word for 
sausage, botulus.