Tuberculosis, a disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has been around for thousands of years. In fact, one of the earliest cases of tuberculosis, known as TB, or often referred to as the White Plague, because of the pale skin of the Caucasians who wasted away from it, was found in a young man from Germany about 7,000 years ago. Scientists believe tuberculosis was probably an extremely common disease in Ancient Egypt, and throughout the centuries was spread through Europe, Asia, and Africa. European explorers including Columbus, were blamed for bringing TB to the New World, though evidence proves Native Americans suffered from the disease long before then. TB did and still does attack many parts of the body. Many people think only of pulmonary tuberculosis, the kind of TB that attacks the lungs because this is the most common form today. In this form, TB bacteria can grow very slowly in a spot on the lung, that has the appearance of a cheesy boil and takes the shape of a tuber, like a potato. If the bacteria attack the blood vessels of the lungs, the affected person often coughs up blood. Another form of TB, Scrofula, a tuberculosis of the lymph glands of the neck, was common in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It was also known as the king’s evil because of the ceremonies in which the kings would use their supposable “powers from God” to touch the infected area and it was believed their touch would heal it. In some cases, the infection would get a little better, but this was because of the long distances traveled in the fresh air to reach the monarchs. The practice continued to take place until the end of the eighteenth century.Inflammation of the coverings of the brain and the spinal cord, known as tuberculosis meningitis, was one of the most severe forms of tuberculosis. It most frequently followed miliary tuberculosis, a form of TB in which small nodules of bact...
