This is written by a stringer
who doesnt know diddly squat about TB
The headline and first sentence is a dead give away (geddit)
//In the late 19th century, an estimated one in seven Europeans was dying of tuberculosis,
Then known as "consumption" for its slow, remorseless wasting of the human body.//
why didnt he write
"Then known as "consumption" for its slow, remorseless wasting of the human body of innocent teenage and adolescent bodies, as keen sportsmen were rendered into skeletons before a painful and bloody death. Death gripped the hearts of fiancees breaking families over generations- This mournful spectacle....."
Novels about this - Dombey and son - Paul Dombey dies from TB around Chap 2 and Florence gets it in the neck from her father for the rest of the book
La Traviata - Radio 3 a few weeks ago - that was not of course the first performance. Piu Taaaaarrrrdi ! is given full throat by buxom sopranos supposedly dying from TB
Pre raphaelite Too Late !
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/windus-too-late-n03597
and it is in the headline
TB killed zillions in the 1890s and the death rate had fallen by 1948 when streptomycin was brought in
ergo ... triple therapy did NOT lead to the fall in incidence of TB
Vaccination ( BCG) - clean living conditions and better working
conditions .... did
and here
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4829a1.htm
it all is....
"The incidence of TB also declined as improvements in housing reduced crowding and TB-control programs were initiated. In 1900, 194 of every 100,000 U.S. residents died from TB; most were residents of urban areas. In 1940 (before the introduction of antibiotic therapy), TB remained a leading cause of death, but the crude death rate had decreased to 46 per 100,000 persons (7)."
first forty years of the 1900s - the incidence declines to a quarter of what it was.
Sqad - you should have done this in your path and Bact course at med school.
No I am not a bacteriologist
but I clearly could have written a better article
( I did do rather well in pathology but as a career - ugh ! it is full of dead people and those that arent dead have AWFUL diseases !)