Tuberculosis is characterized as a social disease and few have been more
inextricably linked with human history. There is evidence from the
archaeological record that Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its human
hosts have been together for a very long time. The very mention of
tuberculosis brings to mind romantic images of great literary figures
pouring out their souls in creative works as their bodies were being
decimated by consumption. It is a disease that at various times has had
a certain glamour associated with it.
From the medieval period to the modern day, Helen Bynum explores the
history and development of tuberculosis throughout the world, touching
on the various discoveries that have emerged about the disease over
time, and focussing on the experimental approaches of Jean-Antoine
Villemin (1827-92) and Robert Koch (1842-1910). Bynum also examines the
place tuberculosis holds in the popular imagination and its role in
various forms of the dramatic arts.
The story of tuberculosis since the 1950s is complex, and Bynum
describes the picture emerging from the World Health Organization of the
difficulties that attended the management of the disease in the
developing world. In the meantime, tuberculosis has emerged again in the
West, both among the urban underclass and in association with a new
infection - HIV. The disease has returned with a vengeance - in
drug-resistant form. The story of tuberculosis is far from over.
