Asthma/TB

Tuberculosis, or TB, is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacteria spreads through the air from person to person and mainly attacks the lungs, but it can affect other areas of the body, according to the American Lung Association. (1)

The disease has been around for most of human history, becoming particularly deadly at times. In fact, researchers can trace tuberculosis back to early Egypt, more than 5,000 years ago. There is also mention of TB in the biblical books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus under the Hebrew word schachepheth, and Hippocrates describes it in his writings as “phthisis.”

It’s possible that M. tuberculosis could have killed more people than any other microorganism. Tuberculosis was an epidemic in industrialized Europe and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. During those times it was known as “consumption.”

The development in the 1940s of streptomycin, the first antibiotic to effectively cure TB, dramatically lowered the number of cases of tuberculosis seen in developed countries, including the United States.