Botulinum toxin
In 1895 (seventy-five years later), Émile van Ermengem, professor of bacteriology and a student of Robert Koch, correctly described "Clostridium botulinum" as the bacterial source of the toxin. Thirty-four attendees at a funeral were poisoned by eating partially salted ham, an extract of which was found to cause botulism-like paralysis in laboratory animals. Van Ermengem isolated and grew the bacterium, and described its toxin, which was later purified by P Tessmer Snipe and Hermann Sommer.
Clostridium botulinum
Only botulinum toxin types A, B, E, F and H cause disease in humans. Types A, B, and E are associated with food-borne illness, with type E specifically associated with fish products. Type C produces limber-neck in birds and type D causes botulism in other mammals. No disease is associated with type G. The "gold standard" for determining toxin type is a mouse bioassay, but the genes for types A, B, E, and F can now be readily differentiated using quantitative PCR. As no antitoxin to type H is yet available, discovered in 2013 and by far the deadliest, details are kept under shroud.