Thursday, October 29, 2009

TB

In the past, tuberculosis has been called consumption, because it seemed to consume people from within, with a bloody cough, fever, pallor, and long relentless wasting. Other names included phthisis (Greek for consumption) and phthisis pulmonalis; scrofula (in adults), affecting the lymphatic system and resulting in swollen neck glands; tabes mesenterica, TB of the abdomen and lupus vulgaris, TB of the skin; wasting disease; white plague, because sufferers appear markedly pale; king's evil, because it was believed that a king's touch would heal scrofula; and Pott's disease, or gibbus of the spine and joints.

Dr. Robert Koch discovered the tuberculosis bacillus.

Miliary tuberculosis—now commonly known as disseminated TB—occurs when the infection invades the circulatory system, resulting in lesions which have the appearance of milletseeds on X-ray.[96][98] TB is also called Koch's disease, after the scientist Robert Koch

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