With his wife, Dr. Jean Carruthers, he conducted hundreds of studies on the wrinkle-erasing properties of the neurotoxin that causes botulism. The work revolutionized beauty care.
“Pretty Poison,” newspapers called it in the mid-1990s, when the deadly neurotoxin that causes botulism began to make headlines as a temporary wrinkle-eraser.
Botulinum toxin was 100 times more virulent than cyanide. For years beginning in World War II, the Defense Department had hoped to develop it as a chemical weapon. But decades later, when Dr. Alan Scott, an ophthalmologist, refined it into a pharmaceutical after discovering its potential to cure conditions like strabismus (crossed eyes) and blepharospasm (involuntary eyelid twitching and clenching), an unlikely byproduct of his treatments was cosmetic: brows as smooth as a child’s.
Yet it was not Dr. Scott who pioneered Botox, as it would later be called, as a panacea for aging. It was Dr. Alastair Carruthers, a Canadian dermatologist, and his wife, Dr. Jean Carruthers, an ophthalmologist, who joined forces to investigate its cosmetic use in hundreds of peer-reviewed studies.
While Dr. Scott would come to be known as the “Father of Botox,” the Carrutherses were considered its godparents. Dr. Alastair Carruthers died on Aug. 19 at his home in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was 79.
Dr. Carruthers, who had advanced Parkinson’s disease, died with the help of Canada’s medical assistance in dying law, his wife said.
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