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.
Ida A. Bengtson
Bengtson's most significant scientific achievement was in regards to an organism called Clostridium botulinum, which causes a paralytic disease in chicken. This organism was first recognized and isolated in 1895 by Emile van Ermengem from home cured ham implicated in a botulism outbreak. The isolate was originally named "Bacillus botulinus", after the Latin word for sausage, "botulus". ("Sausage poisoning" was a common problem in 18th- and 19th-century Germany, and was most likely caused by botulism.) However, isolates from subsequent outbreaks were always found to be anaerobic spore formers, so Bengtson proposed that the organism be placed in the genus "Clostridium" as the "Bacillus" genus was restricted to aerobic spore-forming rods.