Tuberculosis is a disease caused by bacteria, most often affecting the lungs.
The organism that usually causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, can travel through the air and spread from one person to the next. This happens when infected people cough, speak, sneeze, or spit.
Tuberculosis was formerly known as consumption because of the severe weight loss and the way the infection appeared to "consume" the patient.
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| Wikipedia |
The organism that usually causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, can travel through the air and spread from one person to the next. This happens when infected people cough, speak, sneeze, or spit.
Tuberculosis was formerly known as consumption because of the severe weight loss and the way the infection appeared to "consume" the patient.
Tuberculosis only started infecting humans recently. Scientists took a chunk of a mummified bishop's lung and found, using DNA sequencing, that tuberculosis started infecting humans only 6,000 years ago
Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been found in relics from ancient Egypt, China and India.
Spinal tuberculosis, known as Pott’s disease has been detected by archaeologists in Egyptian mummies.
The earliest recorded case of tuberculous in Britain occurred at Tarrant Hinton, Dorset in 300BC.
Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, also known as scrofula, was once known as the king's evil in England and France because it was believed their kings could cure it simply by touching those affected.
During his reign King Charles II of England touched 92,107 sufferers from scrofula, each of whom believed the King's touch would cure them.
With urban and industrial development from the sixteenth century onwards, tuberculous became increasingly dominant in the Western world. By the eighteenth century, 900 out of every 100,000 people were dying from the disease each year.
The cause of tuberculosis was unknown until 1882 when German doctor Robert Koch discovered the bacterium causing it. At this stage, TB was killing an estimated one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe.
Eight years later Koch announced he had developed tuberculin, a cure for tuberculosis. Though it proved ineffective as a vaccine against the disease it is used today as a way of finding out whether a patient had experienced TB.
The Bacillus Calmette–Guerin vaccine against tuberculous is based on a bovine strain of the bacterium. It was developed by Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin in the 1910s and first used on humans in 1921. Today, in countries where tuberculosis is common, one dose of BCG is recommended in healthy babies as close to the time of birth as possible.
Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was isolated by researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey on October 19, 1943.
The use of Streptomycin meant that tuberculosis had largely been eradicated in developed countries by the 1970s.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved Sirturo (bedaquiline), a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug on December 31, 2012. It was the first new medicine to fight the infection in more than forty years.
Tuberculosis used to be easily treated and cured with antibiotics. However, the bacterium is now highly resistant to this method of fighting TB.
Tuberculosis is currently the most common major infectious disease in the world. Almost one third of the world's population are carriers of the TB bacillus and are at risk for developing active disease. Worldwide ten million people are infected annually and 1.3 million died from the disease in 2016. Most of them live in the Third World.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been found in relics from ancient Egypt, China and India.
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| A close up of a culture of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Wikipedia |
Spinal tuberculosis, known as Pott’s disease has been detected by archaeologists in Egyptian mummies.
The earliest recorded case of tuberculous in Britain occurred at Tarrant Hinton, Dorset in 300BC.
Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, also known as scrofula, was once known as the king's evil in England and France because it was believed their kings could cure it simply by touching those affected.
During his reign King Charles II of England touched 92,107 sufferers from scrofula, each of whom believed the King's touch would cure them.
With urban and industrial development from the sixteenth century onwards, tuberculous became increasingly dominant in the Western world. By the eighteenth century, 900 out of every 100,000 people were dying from the disease each year.
The cause of tuberculosis was unknown until 1882 when German doctor Robert Koch discovered the bacterium causing it. At this stage, TB was killing an estimated one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe.
Eight years later Koch announced he had developed tuberculin, a cure for tuberculosis. Though it proved ineffective as a vaccine against the disease it is used today as a way of finding out whether a patient had experienced TB.
 |
| Administration of tuberculin |
The Bacillus Calmette–Guerin vaccine against tuberculous is based on a bovine strain of the bacterium. It was developed by Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin in the 1910s and first used on humans in 1921. Today, in countries where tuberculosis is common, one dose of BCG is recommended in healthy babies as close to the time of birth as possible.
Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was isolated by researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey on October 19, 1943.
The use of Streptomycin meant that tuberculosis had largely been eradicated in developed countries by the 1970s.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved Sirturo (bedaquiline), a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug on December 31, 2012. It was the first new medicine to fight the infection in more than forty years.
Tuberculosis used to be easily treated and cured with antibiotics. However, the bacterium is now highly resistant to this method of fighting TB.
Tuberculosis is currently the most common major infectious disease in the world. Almost one third of the world's population are carriers of the TB bacillus and are at risk for developing active disease. Worldwide ten million people are infected annually and 1.3 million died from the disease in 2016. Most of them live in the Third World.
Many people who recover from tuberculosis experience a significant loss of lung capacity. The extent of this loss can vary, but it's not uncommon for individuals to lose more than half of their lung function
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