Death to Beauty: The Transformative History of Botox

In the 1970s, Dr. Alan Scott sought to selectively weaken eye muscles to treat strabismus (when one or both eyes are misaligned) without surgery. After failed attempts with other agents, Scott developed a method to stabilize the bacteria that causes botulism, culminating in a drug that eventually became known as Botox.

In Death to Beauty, Eugene M. Helveston, MD, follows the unlikely story of botulism's 1817 discovery in contaminated German sausages, to its use in military and research faci...