Talking TB

by , a bacterium spread by contact with infected sputum. Inhaled bacilli invade soft tissue and multiply, forming nodular lesions that—coughing or “spitting blood”—results. Weakened bodies eventually succumb to respiratory failure—in effect, suffocation. A characteristic profound curvature of the upper spine occurs when tuberculosis of the lungs spreads to the spine. This causes a deformity in the upper spine that makes the shoulder blades prominent and the shoulders appear curved or sloped toward the front. Formally called Pott’s Disease, this “hump” was understood to be a feature of consumption. Until antibiotics arrived, TB dominated the popular imagination; fear of contagion was called “phthisophobia.” When in 1926 author A.A. Milne gave Christopher Robin “the wheezles and sneezles,” the poem’s doctors warned “if he freezles in draughts and in breezles, the might even ensue.” TB remains the most common form of infectious disease-related death in the world