Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that can attack different parts of the body, but usually occurs in the lungs. The bacteria that causes tuberculosis, which is the mycobacterium tuberculosis, spreads from person to person in the air. The disease was called consumption in the 19th century when patients generally died soon after developing the "graveyard cough." Tuberculosis, or TB, continues to be a public health challenge that is fought on many fronts.
Consumption
Evidence indicates that TB existed thousands of years ago. In the 19th century, young, passionate artistic types who developed a serious illness characterized by coughing and ending in death were said to be suffering from consumption. While lay people looked for the telltale coughing up of blood, 19th century physicians charted the three stages of the disease during which consumptive patients developed a worsening cough; suffered fevers, pains, throat ulcers and emaciation; had difficulty breathing; and eventually died. Consumption was widely believed to be hereditary and not a contagious disease, even though a theory published in 1720 suggested that the disease was spread from person to person by minute creatures.
Tuberculosis
The organism that causes TB was discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, a German doctor who is also credited with confirming that the disease is spread when the bacteria is carried on the air in droplets exhaled by infected persons. Koch's discoveries launched public health campaigns to stop the millions of TB deaths. TB sanatoriums focused on rest, fresh air and nutrition. After 13 years of development, the Bacille Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, vaccine was administered for the first time in 1921.
Symptoms and Treatment
Latent TB infection, or LTBI, occurs when a person tests positive for the disease, but does not have symptoms, is not sick and is not contagious. The person can become ill if the TB bacteria becomes active and begin to multiply. TB disease occurs when your immune system cannot stop the active bacteria from multiplying. TB symptoms include a chronic cough that lasts for at least three weeks, weight loss, fatigue, night sweats and fevers, chills and coughing up mucus or blood. TB can kill if not treated. The treatment involves taking several medications over a long period of time and undergoing monitoring and testing by a doctor.
Modern Medicine
Research and development of anti-TB drugs continued throughout the 20th century. Health organizations all over the world fight the threat of a worldwide epidemic that could result from drug-resistant strains of TB caused by mutations of the bacteria. Public health efforts continue on all fronts, especially education and prevention. In the United States, federal and state public health agencies respond to TB outbreaks, provide free treatment and enforce efforts to contain outbreaks.
References
- MedlinePlus: Tuberculosis
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Tuberculosis -- "I Must Die"
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Tuberculosis -- Age of Optimism
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Basic TB Facts
- University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey: History of Tuberculosis Treatment
