We take this oath to "do no harm" as we embark on medical careers.
It sometimes seems strange to me (and often times to other people) that we would purposefully inject a neurotoxin responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths into individuals.
Botulism has claimed the lives of countless children over the years. Today, we use it as one more tool to help children with horrible conditions such as cerebral palsy. Selectively injecting this medicine into muscles may help a child to walk better, write more efficiently, or perhaps just allow a caregiver to dress the child with a little bit less effort.
But, though this intervention is quite effective, the procedure still requires long needles, electrical stimulation, and often times anesthesia.
My hope for medicine is that it will one day advance to the point where what we do to help children will be just a little less mean.