Without a cure, treatment focused on isolating infected people to prevent them from spreading the disease. Open Air Schools and Tuberculosis – Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Tuberculin subsequently proved to be an effective test for tuberculosis but not the long-sought cure.
After using it to treat several cases, however, he realized that it was not effective and abandoned its use. Kent of Putnam spent four months in Koch’s laboratory in Berlin and was one of the first to bring tuberculin to the United States. Koch developed a vaccine (which he called “tuberculin”) made from an inactive form of the bacterium.ĭr. It was only in 1882 that a German doctor, Robert Koch, succeeded in identifying the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and proving that it caused the disease. Although, like cancer, tuberculosis affected different parts of the human body, the most frequent and most familiar form attacked the lungs and became known as “consumption.” This form of the disease produced fever, a racking cough, and increasing fatigue as the infection spread and the body consumed itself from within.īecause the progress of the disease was often slow and it was possible to be infected without showing any overt symptoms, many initially believed that tuberculosis (TB) was not contagious. Few communities were untouched by it, and fear of contagion was widespread. They called it the “White Plague.” It was one of the leading causes of death in the United States during the early years of the 20th century.
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