Summary
Commentary by Lilia Scudamore
History is the study of the past. Historians of health and disease analyze how pathogens shaped our physical, social, and cultural environments and, inversely, how humans have responded. Methods include gathering evidence and analyzing diverse sources, including oral accounts, government reports, newspapers, magazines, art, recipe books, environmental records, mortality statistics, and legislation. Historians also examine gaps in records and study why these absences may exist.
Tuberculosis has been widely studied by historians, who have helped determine early known records of TB, perceptions, and reactions to the disease (1). Historical studies have revealed that tuberculosis has both influenced and been influenced by the contexts in which it appears. For example, historians have demonstrated how the transmission of tuberculosis was impacted by imperialism, colonization, migration, and trade, and how the spread of disease has been linked to historic developments in diets, architecture, fashion, literature, education, conflict, health care systems, and policy (2, 3).
History is relevant for current tuberculosis research because it helps divulge the successes, failures, and dilemmas of previous TB control efforts, such as sanatoria, BCG vaccine campaigns, and medical exams. Concurrently, historians have shown that before antibiotics and vaccines, TB treatment and prevention relied on measures such as rest, nutrition, and improved housing, paralleling today’s calls to address the social determinants of health (4, 5). Historical analysis thus provides the opportunity to recognize how our contemporary world has been and continues to be shaped by TB. Through these broader understandings and contextualizations, researchers today may better avoid past mistakes and reintegrate effective strategies into our present-day policies.
References
1. Dubos, René J., and Jean Dubos. The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society. Little, Brown, 1952. https://archive.org/details/whiteplaguetuber0000dubo/mode/2up.
2. Chakraborty, Arnab, Janaka Jayawickrama, and Yong-an Zhang, eds. A Brief Social History of Tuberculosis: Key Challenges to Global Health. London: Routledge, 2024. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/94002/1/9781040264119.pdf
3. Worboys, Michael, and Flurin Condrau, eds. Tuberculosis Then and Now: Perspectives on the History of an Infectious Disease. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010.
4. Teller, Michael E. The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era. Greenwood Press, 1988.
5. Riva, Michele A. “From Milk to Rifampicin and Back Again: History of Failures and Successes in the Treatment for Tuberculosis.” The Journal of Antibiotics 67, no. 9 (2014): 661–65. https://www.nature.com/articles/ja2014108.
