Botulinumtoxin (BTX) is a neurotoxin produced from Clostridium botulinum under 
anaerobic conditions and is responsible for botulism, a notifiable, bacterial 
form of food poisoning. The first case of botulism is believed to have occurred 
in 1735. An epidemic in Southern Germany in 1793 claimed the death of over the 
half of those patients who had become ill through eating uncooked blood 
sausages. The term "pharmakon" is Greek and implicates that a drug originates 
from poison (potion, remedy). Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim known as 
Paracelsus (1493/94-1541) first described this duality with his dictum "alle 
ding sind gift und nichts on gift; alein die dosis macht das ein ding kein gift 
ist" (only the dose makes a remedy poisonous). In Baden-Württemberg in 1817, the 
poet and physician Dr. Justinus Christian Kerner described the symptoms of 
botulism, so that at this time botulism was also called Kerner disease. Until 
the turn of the century the reason for poisoning was not known. Van Ermengem 
succeeded in isolating the anaerobic bacterium causing botulism, but the 
specific mechanism of BTX was only established after the second World War. In 
the late seventies the ophthalmologist Dr. Alan Scott used BTX the first time in 
the treatment of strabismus. The drug was then used in the treatment of several 
muscle spasticities such as, for example, torticollis or hemifacial spasm. Only 
recently BTX has been successfully used for focal hyperhidrosis. We review the 
history of botulinum toxin from its discovery in the nineteenth century and the 
research into its effect in the middle of the 20th century up to its clinical 
use at the present time.