第4期:认识细菌(4) Howard Phil suffers from spasmodic torticollis , a painful disorder caused by hyperactive muscles that twist the neck and can permanently tilt a person ' s head to the front back or side .
About a hundred and fifty thousand Americans suffer from this condition . Dr . Schatz wondered since the toxin paralyzes muscles , perhaps a tiny amount would relax overactive muscles .
At one one-thousandth the lethal dose , the deadly toxin becomes a healer . In the minute I got my first injections , the pain was gone .
I mean it was just it was a great great feeling my life had been given back to me . It ' s ironic when you take a toxin that can kill people and all of a sudden it ' s saving lives .
It ' s ironic and it ' s it ' s a great thing . Clostridium botulinum is a strange organism .
Under the right conditions , it grows quickly into a large population . Then the cells destroy themselves , the bacteria die and the deadly toxin is released .
To start a batch of toxin and completed for medical use , it takes about three weeks . And in that time we can prepare enough toxin to supply the medical profession for many many years .
And all of it in a tiny tube as you see on the bench . There is promising research that botulinum toxin will help millions of people suffering from conditions associated with hyper active muscles ,
such as Parkinson ' s disease , cerebral palsy , multiple sclerosis and stuttering . Did you know one of the leading causes of food poisoning is bacteria ?
Bacteria often does an effect of foods appearance or flavor . So it ' s important to make sure that food is kept away from harmful bacteria during its processing and preparation .
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