History of Tuberculosis
Since the ancient times Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been present in the human population. Autopsies of Egyptian mummies dating back to 2400 BCE found evidence of tuberculosis in fragments of their spinal columns. Mycobacterium once termed “phthisis” which is Latin Greek for consumption condition. Hippocrates noted phthisis as the most fatal widespread disease of his time in 460 BCE. In his Opera Medica of 1679, Sylvius first identified actual tubercles as a consistent characteristic change in the lungs. The English physician Benjamin Marten, in 1720, was the first to note that TB could be caused by "wonderfully minute living creatures," that could wreak havoc on the body once inside. Dr. Marten also warned against breathing the same air as expelled from the infected. In 1854, Hermann Brehmer, gave a doctoral dissertation on “Tuberculosis is a Curable Disease” and introduced the sanatorium cure as the first step against tuberculosis. Jean-Antoine Villemin, a French military doctor, laid to rest the centuries-old belief that consumption arose spontaneously in each affected organism in 1865. In 1882, Robert Koch was first to discover a staining technique allowing him to see Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 1944, Streptomycin was introduced to a critically infected TB patient, and the drug showed immediate results, but had many side effects. Nonetheless, resistant mutants of TB began to develop and combinations of two or three drugs were needed to overcome the disease. An estimate from the World Health Organization shows that nine million people get TB every year with 95% residents of developing countries. It is estimated that TB will kill 2-3 million people each year. In the mid-1900, industrialized countries reflect a steady drop in TB infections reported, but since then rates have begun to rise. Much of this rise can be at least partially attributed to a high rate of immigration from countries with a high incidence of TB.
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