History

Tuberculosis has been known to mankind since ancient times. Consumption, phthisis, scrofula, Pott's disease, and the White Plague are all terms used to refer to tuberculosis throughout history (abbreviated TB for tubercle bacillus, named consumption because it appeared to consume the patient from within, white plague as it imparted a deathly white pallor to the skin).

Tuberculosis in Human History

Tuberculosis in Ancient times

The organism causing tuberculosis - Mycobacterium tuberculosis existed 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. It has been found in relics from ancient Egypt, India, and China. Among Egyptian mummies spinal tuberculosis, known as Pott’s disease has been detected by archaeologists.
Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, noted that "phthisis" (Greek for consumption) was the most widespread and fatal disease of his time.

Tuberculosis in the Middle ages

Evidence of tuberculosis of the cervical lymph nodes or lymph nodes of the neck termed scrofula is found in the Middle ages. It was termed as the “king’s evil” and was widely believed that the kings of England and France could cure scrofula simply by touching those affected.

Tuberculosis in the 18th century

In the 18th century in Western Europe, tuberculosis reached its peak with a prevalence as high as 900 deaths per 100,000. Poorly ventilated and overcrowded housing, primitive sanitation, malnutrition and other risk factors led to the rise. The term White plague emerged around this time.

Famous people to suffer from Tuberculosis

Famous men and women over ages suffered from this disease. Notable among these were poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the authors Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Bronte, and Edgar Allen Poe, the musicians Nicolo Paganini and Frederic Chopin to name a few.

Discoveries pertinent to tuberculosis

On the evening of March 24, 1882, Robert Koch, a German physician and scientist, presented his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB). 

Robert Koch, Nobel Laureate, 1905.

He showed that the organism’s unique protein coat made it difficult to visualize earlier until a specific stain called the Ziehl-Neelsen stain was discovered. The bacteria was called Koch’s bacillus and since it took up the red acidic dye, it was called AFB or acid fast bacilli. Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1905. In 1895 Wilhelm Roentgen developed X rays which further advanced diagnostics of tuberculosis. This allowed early diagnosis and isolation of infected individuals.

Isolation

In the nineteenth century the concept of keeping tuberculosis patients isolated in a sanatorium started. Initially started in Silelsia in 1859 by Hermann Brehmer the idea caught on. In 1884, Edward Livingston Trudeau started the first sanatorium in the United States. Infectious persons were isolated from society and treated with rest and improved nutrition. 

Vaccine for tuberculosis

In the 1880s Louis Pasteur began the concept of development of vaccines against anthrax, chicken cholera, and, later, rabies. In 1908, the French scientists Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin grew Koch’s bacillus in several mediums to decrease their virulence and increase the capacity to produce immunity. This led to the now famous vaccine called bacillus of Calmette and Guérin (BCG) named after the two founders. BCG was introduced in 1921.

Surgery for tuberculosis

Before antibiotics were found effective against tuberculosis, surgical treatment of tuberculosis was common and often life saving. Dr. James Carson, a Scottish physician (1821), began treatment by draining pleural effusion from around the lungs and found surgery helped prolong life. Various techniques evolved but due to lack of efficacy faded away after advent of anti-tubercular drugs.

Anti-tubercular drugs

Antibiotics were used against tuberculosis for the first time in 1944 after the discovery of streptomycin. Use of this agent alone led to antibiotic resistance that is still a major problem.
Better results followed the development of PAS (para-aminosalicyclic acid). PAS was an oral agent unlike streptomycin. Thereafter more effective drugs like INH (isoniazid) came in 1950’s and treatment with rifampicin followed. Currently, there are fewer than 20 agents with activity against mycobacterium.





Reference:
1. http://www.news-medical.net/health/History-of-Tuberculosis.aspx 
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tuberculosis
3. "Tuberculosis". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 3 Jul 2013. <http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/tuberculosis/readmore.html>