It is a neurotoxin 100 times more deadly than cyanide and the cause of the food-borne illness known as botulism. During World War II and for some years after, the Department of Defense hoped to develop it as a chemical weapon. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that Alan Scott, an ophthalmologist, turned this toxin, Clostridium botulinum, into a pharmaceutical, when he began to investigate it as a medical treatment for serious eye impairments.

Little did he know at the time that the therapeutic drug he developed would become the basis of a billion-dollar industry famous for its cosmetic use as a temporary wrinkle eraser.

Dr. Scott, who came to be called the “Father of Botox,” died on Dec. 16 at a hospital in Greenbrae, Calif. He was 89. The cause was complications of sepsis, his daughter Alison Ferguson said.

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