Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious infectious disease which attacks the lungs and other parts of the body. It is caused by certain strains of bacteria, especially mycobacterium tuberculosis, and is spread by airborne droplets from the coughs or sneezes of an infected person. Symptoms can include persistent coughing, phlegm with blood, night sweats and fever.(NHS Choices).

History: TB was a major public concern in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early 1800s around a quarter of all deaths in England were due to TB, known then as "consumption". It was most concentrated in the urban poor. It wasn't until the 1880s that TB was determined to be contagious, after which infected people went to a TB 'sanatorium' or 'fever hospital', many of which resembled prisons. Examples in the North East included Hebburn Fever Hospital and the TB sanatorium in the City Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Walker. Local heroine, Grace Darling died from TB in Bambrugh in 1842.

As living conditions and sanitation improved, the rates of TB in Britain began to reduce. In 1946, the antibiotic streptomycin was developed and provided an effective treatment for TB. Also, with the establishment of the NHS after World War 2 public vaccination programmes against TB, using the BCG vaccine, drastically reduced incidence of the disease.