ABSTRACT
I. BACKGROUND In 1897 the Belgian physician Emile van Ermengem provided evidence of the etiology of foodborne botulism (1), a serious illness whose clinical signs and transmission through food, mainly poisonous sausage, or botulus in Latin, had been known for some time. He isolated similar anaerobic, sporeforming, rod-shaped microorganisms both from the clinical specimens of patients affected with botulism and from the improperly cured ham that they all had previously consumed. These microorganisms were capable of producing a heat-and alkali-labile substance that was toxic to various vertebrates upon feeding or injection. Then he concluded that the outbreak of alimentary intoxication under investigation was related to the "ham bacillus" and named it Bacillus botulinus (1). When the phylogenetic Clostridium/Bacillus subdivision was subsequently split on the basis of the metabolism (anaerobic or aerobic, respectively) of the different organisms, Bacillus botulinus was newly designated as Clostridium botulinum (2).
