Forty years ago, ophthalmologist Alan Scott made an unprecedented effort to help a patient who had three unsuccessful surgeries for double vision.
He tried his way: He injected a domesticated botulism toxin, the world’s deadliest poison, into a patient’s eye muscles. “I don’t know if I’m more nervous or if he is more nervous,” Scott said. The result was successful and Scott was hailed as the father of what was later called Botox. In 1991, he sold the rights to the pharmaceutical company Allergan, which developed the drug to smooth facial wrinkles and later saw its popularity zoom in.
However, Scott continued to have a strong interest in the non-cosmetic benefits of botulism-toxin injections and other unique treatments for eye-related disorders. And so Scott, 83, works every day at the Strabismus Research Foundation, which occupies a small office in an elegant century-old building in Nob, San Francisco. Botox is associated with looking good permanently. But Scott’s work has led many doctors to use the drug to treat everything from migraine headaches and chewing problems to drooling, hair loss and urinary incontinence. The New York Times called it “medicine’s answer to duct tape.”
Botox consists of spores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which is naturally found in sediments as well as in the intestinal tracts of some animals and fish. The drug inhibits the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine by binding itself to receptors in skeletal muscle, nerve endings, brain, and some smooth muscles. Botox essentially paralyzes the muscles for short periods of time, by preventing the nerves from sending signals to the muscles to contract. In the 1820s, German physician and poet Justinus Kerner first came up with the idea of using botulism for therapeutic purposes, which he called “sausage poisoning”, after experimenting on animals and himself.
During World War II, military scientists experimented with it. Although it can be 100 times more toxic than cyanide, it is extremely difficult to turn into a weapon. When the Army shut down the Chemical Corps, it supplied the botulism toxin to curious academic researchers. Scott was the first to discover, in the early 1970s, that laboratory experimental monkeys respond well to drug injections into the eye muscles. He found that the “botulinum toxin” paralysis was limited to the targeted muscle, could last quite a long time, and had no side effects. During this time, he and his colleagues developed Teflon insulated needles to locate and paralyze eye muscles to treat strabismus, crossed or other misalignment of the eyes. He gave his first human injection in 1977, after gaining Food and Drug Administration approval for a clinical trial.
Scott and Joel Miller, directors of research at the Strabismus Research Foundation, expanded on the injection approach. Together with other colleagues, with a grant from the National Institutes of Health and other sources, they published a study showing that bupivacaine, a local anesthetic, can strengthen the eye muscle opposite the muscle weakened by Botox. They found that strabismus was successfully corrected in two-thirds of the patients tested.
These results are encouraging and will replace surgery for many patients, Scott said. Studies to get the right dose of bupivacaine and see long-term effects in children with strabismus are just beginning. Bupivacaine can stimulate the eye muscles similar to weight lifting. “Your muscles are reacting to that,” he said of the anesthesia. “They send a signal to satellite cells located around the muscle fibers to strengthen the fibers.” In addition to strabismus, Botox is a boon for patients with benign essential blepharospasm, a neurological condition in which the eyes involuntarily force themselves to close by preventing the muscles from going into spasm. Blepharospasm affects an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 Americans; For some unknown reason, women are twice as likely to suffer as men. Until the FDA approved Botox for their treatment in 1989, the options for these patients were either medication—which doesn’t work for everyone—or surgery.
History of Skin Care
Have you ever wondered how women made themselves beautiful in antiquity or the Renaissance? Well, let’s say they didn’t have the skincare wonders we have now (medical spa procedures, Botox, and countless anti-aging creams and serums.)
Want to learn more about the history of skin care? COME travel back in time with us as we discuss how women in ancient cultures took care of their skin until the modern day.
HOW WOULD PEOPLE LOOK AT CENTURIES AGO?
Ancient Egypt
Did you know that the first archaeological evidence of cosmetics is from Ancient Egypt about 6,000 years ago? But cosmetics weren’t just for aesthetic purposes – they also protected the Ancient Egyptians from the elements like the sun and insects. makeup, t