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Have you ever seen a celebrity and wondered: How do they maintain such a smooth, youthful forehead?
当你看着某个明星的时候有没有很奇怪：他们的前额为什么如何光滑没有皱纹？
Chances are, that celebrity is using a little Botox.
这些明星很有可能使用了肉毒杆菌素。
Botox is a prescription drug best known for its cosmetic use, to make wrinkles less noticeable.
肉毒杆菌素是一种处方药，因其美容用途而出名，可用于平滑皱纹。
It's pretty run-of-the-mill nowadays,
肉毒杆菌素的使用在如今相当普遍，
but what people might not know is that its active ingredient is one of the deadliest biological substances known to mankind.
但是人们或许不知道肉毒杆菌素的活性成分是人类已知的最为致命的活性物质之一。
That neurotoxin, called botulinum toxin, is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
这神经毒素被称为肉毒毒素，由细菌肉毒杆菌产生。
We think the first person to try and figure out how it works was German physician Justinus Kerner.
我们认为试图查明其功效的第一人是德国医师尤斯蒂努斯·肯纳。
In the early 1800s, he observed muscle weakening, gastrointestinal problems,
在十九世纪初期，他对肌肉虚弱、肠胃问题进行观察，
and eventually respiratory failure in patients who had eaten spoiled sausages.
最终食用变质腊肠的病人死于呼吸衰竭。
So he figured there must be some kind of poison in the meat that was interfering with their nervous systems.
所以他认为肉中一定有某些毒素介入到人体的神经系统之中。
Half a century later, German physician John Muller called this illness botulism, because botulus means sausage in Latin.
半世纪后，德国医师约翰·缪勒将此称这种疾病为肉毒中毒，因为肉毒中毒在拉丁语中指的是腊肠。
And then in 1895, the Belgian bacteriologist Émile van Ermengem was investigating a botulism outbreak and traced it back to some cured ham.
1895年，比利时细菌学家Émile van Ermengem正在调查一种肉毒中毒的爆发并追其源头至一些腌制的火腿。
He found C. botulinum in the ham and in the tissues of a couple people who died from the disease.
他在火腿中发现了C型肉毒素，在死于该疾病的一些人的组织中也发现了这种毒素。
And, upon further investigation, he isolated botulinum toxin for the first time.
根据进一步调查，他首次将肉毒毒素隔离出来。
Even today, botulism is usually caused by contaminated food,
即使如今，肉毒中毒也常是由于污染食物而造成的，
and that can even be vacuum-sealed packages, because C. botulinum thrives without oxygen.
甚至真空密封包装都有可能造成肉毒中毒，因为C型肉毒素可以无氧繁殖。
If you're unlucky enough to eat it, the bacterium produces botulinum toxin in your gut,
如果你不幸吃了污染食物，那么细菌会在你的内脏中产生肉毒毒素，
which gets absorbed into your bloodstream and makes its way to your peripheral nervous system.
被你的血流吸收并流向你的周围神经系统。
Normally, the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is released at the neuromuscular junction,
通常，神经递质乙酰胆碱会在肌肉神经接点被释放
the space or synapse between a neuron and a muscle cell.
肌肉神经接点是在神经元和肌细胞之间。
There, it's taken up by specific receptors on muscle cells, which makes the muscle contract.
乙酰胆碱被特殊肌细胞中殊接收器接收，造成肌肉收缩。
But botulinum toxin blocks the release of acetylcholine, and stops muscle contraction.
但是肉毒毒素阻碍了乙酰胆碱的释放，肌肉无法收缩。
Yep, those smooth foreheads and cheeks you see in Botox recipients are because of muscle paralysis.
你看到的那些光滑的前额和脸蛋都是肌肉麻痹的效果。
If you're exposed to a dollop of botulinum toxin, weakening of facial muscles usually happens first,
如果注射肉毒毒素，通常首先弱化的是面部肌肉，
and then that spreads throughout your body.
然后传遍你的身体。
And without treatment, botulinum toxin will eventually affect muscles that you need to breathe.
不接受治疗的话，肉毒毒素最终会影响到用于呼吸的肌肉。
Typically, that treatment includes hospitalization, with antibiotics to kill the bacteria and an antitoxin to take care of the botulinum toxin.
通常治疗包括，住院治疗，利用抗生素杀死细菌，用抗毒素对付肉毒毒素。
So there are some serious risks linked with Botox, but the prescription dose is so low that new nerves can sprout within a couple of months.
因此，注射肉毒杆菌素存在一些严重风险，但是处方剂量药效很慢，新的神经要几个月才能长出来。
And those shiny new synapses mean muscles can contract again.
那些新触角意味着肌肉会再次收缩。
Now, you might be wondering who would ever inject a deadly poison into their face on purpose?
现在，你或许想知道谁会故意将这种致命毒素注射进自己的面部？
The history of Botox is a little contested, but the first reported use of botulinum toxin in a clinical setting was in the late 1970s.
肉毒杆菌素的历史存在争论，但是关于肉毒毒素使用的首个报告是在二十世纪七十年代晚期的临床环境中。
At that point, it had been purified from C. botulinum
在那个阶段，就已经对C型肉毒素进行纯化
and researchers had shown that injecting small amounts could relax overactive muscles.
研究人员展示了少量的注射可以放松过度活跃的肌肉。
So the ophthalmologist Alan Scott figured that it could also be used to relax muscles around the eyes,
因此，眼科医师艾伦·史考特认为肉毒素也可以放松眼部肌肉
to treat a condition where they're misaligned called strabismus, which causes problems with vision and depth perception.
用于治疗斜眼，斜眼会造成视力和深度知觉问题。
Injecting this neurotoxin weakened the muscle contractions that were causing his patients' "cross-eyed" appearance.
注射这种神经毒素能够弱化导致病人斜眼的肌肉收缩。
And it kept them from needing invasive surgery.
并且还能让患者免受侵入式手术的痛苦。
Botulinum toxin was also used to treat blepharospasm, a condition where patients can't always control their eyelids closing.
肉毒毒素还被用于治疗睑痉挛，患这种疾病的病人无法控制眼睑的闭合。
And in the 1980s, ophthalmologist Jean Carruthers was doing that treatment,
二十世纪八十年代，眼科医师琼·卡拉瑟斯正在做这种治疗，
and noticed the skin around one of her patient's eyes and forehead got a little less wrinkly.
她注意到病人眼周和前额的皮肤皱纹少了一点。
In a potentially risky move, Carruthers went ahead and injected the frown lines of her receptionist,
在一次冒险尝试中，卡拉瑟斯继续往接待员的眉间纹注射肉毒毒素，
marking the first cosmetic use of botulinum toxin.
这是首次将肉毒毒素用于美容。
After much more testing to figure out how much botulinum toxin was safe to administer and where,
在经过多次测试掌握正确用量和注射部位后，
Botox was approved by the FDA on April 15, 2002.
2002年4月15日，肉毒杆菌素得到了FDA的批准。
Beyond its cosmetic uses, researchers are looking into the muscle-relaxing quality of Botox for medical purposes.
除了美容用途外，研究人员还在研究肉毒杆菌素放松肌肉的医疗用途。
Like, certain injection sites seem to help with chronic migraines and excessive salivation.
比如，某些注射部位似乎可以帮助慢性偏头痛和过度分泌唾液。
Or specific muscle groups can be targeted to lessen the movement problems that come with disorders like multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.
或者特殊肌肉群可以成为缓解运动问题的目标，伴随这些运动问题的病症，比如多发性硬化和大脑性麻痹。
And that list is only growing.
这张名单只会增加。
Because Botox is an FDA-approved drug, it can be prescribed by a licensed physician for any condition.
因为肉毒杆菌素是FDA批准药物，所以执照医师可以为任何病症开这种药。
That being said, the safety and effectiveness of Botox to treat many medical problems hasn't been established by the FDA yet.
话虽这么说的，但用肉毒杆菌素治疗多种医学问题的安全性和有效性仍未经FDA确定。
So there's a lot of ongoing research to better understand the short-term and long-term risks.
因此还需进行大量研究以更好地了解它的短期和长期风险。
For now though, the take-home message is: inject at your own risk.
虽然目前，关键信息是：注射风险自己承担。
And whether you're staving off forehead wrinkles or looking to avoid migraines,
不论是用于解决前额皱纹还是寻求治疗偏头痛，
Botox is another amazing example of human ingenuity: re-engineering a deadly toxin for potential good.
肉毒杆菌素都是人类独创性的另一个证明：永久重组致命毒素。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!
感谢收看本期《科学秀》！
If you want to learn more about deadly toxins we've co-opted as medicines, check out our list show where we talk about 7 of them.
如果你想了解更多用作医药的致命毒素，请观看我们视频，其中讲到了7种毒素。
And if you just want to learn about all kinds of weird science with us, you can go to youtube.com/scishow and subscribe.
如果你想了解所有诡异科学，请登录youtube.com/scishow进行订阅。
