Tuberculosis

932 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: PRIMary and secondary prevention of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis. It was the cause of countless deaths throughout the history of humanity. It has been a fearful disease and has existed with humans for thousands of years; in the past two centuries alone, it ruthlessly murdered and crippled billions of people! It also has been called the white plague or white death, as this single microbe can be so devastating. It is one of the diseases that has tormented humans for ages and the story of this gruesome slaughterer continues even today.

Tuberculosis (TB) has various infections that can completely immobilize one's body. Its infections are varied and it generally eats away lung tissues and forms boils that releases pus. As disease proceeds, lungs would mercilessly be devoured and the victim will become pallid and fragile, coughing up blood and becoming unable to breathe. The word consumption originated from this sickness because o Infections in digestive tract can cause serious vomiting, bloody diarrhea, and acute pain. Aside from lungs, it can also infect bloodstream and even kidneys. TB can also cripple people's nervous system and their bones. Basically, it can destroy one's body completely. Surprisingly, the germ causing it (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) is extremely small.

This killer germ is passed on through droplet infection including sneezing and coughing (less contagious than cold or flu but fatal) and only people with active tuberculosis are infectious. (63) Other way it can infect humans are through milk and milk infections are extremely rare.

The treatment of this killer started with a man named Hermann Brehmer, who started building a sanatorium for TB patients, which provided healthy diet and fresh air. This idea disseminated throughout Europe and eventually ...

... middle of paper ...

...Department of Health and Human Services of United States proposed a goal to completely abolish tuberculosis from the Earth by 2010. However, several Missouri counties have stated tuberculosis' recent rise and saying it still is a threat as it is airborne and infectious; tuberculosis will persist to be a peril to humanity (Nochlin, 2010). People still need to defeat various obstacles to reach that goal as AIDS and TB are cooperating to kill victims faster as well as intensifying the dangers of certain TB. Different parts of the world are also in danger, including India and Africa and Africa is particularly in great danger. Twenty-five million there are HIV-positive and 200 million are infected with inactive TB (Zimmerman, 2003). Certainly, these statistics forecast an inevitable massacre and the white death may become the greatest health disaster in human history.

Show More
Related

  • Tuberculosis Case Study

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    A low-grade fever, weight loss, lethargy, night sweats, respiratory congestion, cough, and hemoptysis, are symptoms indicative of Tuberculosis. A positive skin test, abnormal chest x-ray and a positive sputum culture are indicators of Tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is transmitted by inhalation of respiratory droplets containing bacteria. This excerpt depicts tuberculosis and its history and prevalence.

    Read More

  • Case Study Of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis By Tuberculosis

    1534 Words  | 4 Pages

    An estimated one third of the world 's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 2012 there were 9,975 cases of TB reported and of those cases 28% where Hispanic or Latino. This respiratory disease is the most common in the lungs (World Health Organization, 2014). The brain which causes tuberculosis meningitis, genitourinary TB, gastrointestinal TB, tuberculosis lymphadenitis, cutaneous TB, uterus ovarian TB and Osteo- articular skeletal bone and joints are also parts of the body that are affected (Article base, 2008). Symptoms of TB are chills, fever, night sweats, hemoptysis, cough lasting more than 3 weeks, chest pains, and weight loss (Tuberculosis, 2014). Transmission of TB is through a sneeze, a cough, speaking, or singing in which the person has the

    Read More

  • use of isoniazid in treating tb

    1804 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tuberculosis is a contagious airborne disease that affects the lungs of humans and some animals i.e. cattle. If tuberculosis is left untreated and allowed to spread, it can then also affect the brain, kidneys, spine or other organ systems. As tuberculosis strikes the lungs a hole can develop which can cause an accumulation of air or fluid between the chest wall and lungs. This causes one of many tuberculosis symptoms: chest pain, and shortness of breath. (See fig.2) Infections can erode a blood vessel and the patient can bleed to death, or they can slowly suffocate as lungs become filled with tubercles.4

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis: The Life Cycle Of Pathogens

    1406 Words  | 3 Pages

    The bacteria are gasped in a process of air and overcome by alveolar macrophages. In some cases the bacteria’s are able to reproduce and the new pledge can harm the victim. Furthermore, Tuberculosis spreads when the mycobacterial enters alveolar mycobacterial.

    Read More

  • tuberculosis, the white death

    962 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tuberculosis or TB, referred to by some as the White death due to the epidemic that arose in Europe that lasted two hundred years, is usually caused by in humans by a microorganism by substrains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It’s hard to determine the exact years in which TB first infected humans, but since the disease leaves traces on the bone in can be found in archeological record and it is believed to go all the way back to the B.C. era. Although it is hard to tell if the bone damage was truly from TB, there is research that shows that it has been around since the 17th and 18th centuries with a high number of incidences of TB, and in 1882 Dr. Robert Koch announced that his discovery of the causing factor of TB, which is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A tuberculosis bacterium is spread through the air by an infected person speaking, coughing, or sneezing. Due to the fact the bacteria is protected by a waxy cell all, the body’s defense takes weeks to develop any kind of immunity and it allows the bacteria to exponentially multiply freely within the body. If TB it’s left untreated it will eat rapidly through many tissues, usually beginning with the lungs, lymph nodes, and kidneys. As the infection spreads to the lungs, it causes a cough and fluid between the chest wall and lungs, which leads to chest pains, severe shortness of breath, and potential heart failure. TB also infects bones and joints that can produce arthritis like pain and characteristic bone damage. Another possibility is that it may affect the fluid around the brain, causing meningitis, which can lead to fever, drowsiness, and eventually coma and death (Wingerson, 2009).

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis Essay

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tuberculosis is sometimes called disease of the poor, poverty restricts lots of people to live in a small space, leading to overcrowding. Smaller spaces increase the possibility of M. Tuberculosis to spread and infect an individual. Also immunocompromised individual are susceptible to acquiring tuberculosis. For example, HIV patients, malnourished individual are more susceptible to tuberculosis compared to the average healthy individual. People that are constantly in close range to infected individual are at higher risk of getting infected because, they are more likely to share and breathe the same air. This will lead to inhalation of M. Tuberculosis and might eventually lead to tuberculosis.

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis Research Papers

    1505 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tuberculosis is disease caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Usually bacteria attacks lungs but TB bacteria can attack any parts of the body such as brain, kidney, and spine. It can spread through the lymph node and blood stream to any organ. Usually it is seen in the lungs. If it is not treated accordingly, it can be deadly. One of the leading causes of death in the United States was tuberculosis. Everyone who infected with TB bacteria not get sick. There are two TB conditions stand. They are latent TB infection and TB disease. In latent TB infection, people do not get sick but TB bacteria can live in you. People with latent TB infection cannot spread the bacteria to others nor are they infectious. If the bacteria is active and multiply, the person has TB disease. If a person has TB disease, their immune system cannot stop the bacteria become active. People with TB disease get sick and they are able to spread the bacteria to others.

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    TB is a disease that can cause a serious illness and can damage a person's

    Read More

  • The History Of Tuberculosis

    1693 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease that is spread through the air from one person to another causing it to be an airborne disease. When a person with tuberculosis coughs or sneezes the bacteria fly into the air. Anyone around a person with tuberculosis who is not wearing proper personal protective equipment, and breathes in the bacteria will then catch tuberculosis. Tuberculosis mainly affects the lungs, but it can

    Read More

  • The Impact of Tuberculosis on the Work of Anton Chekhov

    2221 Words  | 5 Pages

    Dormandy,  Thomas.  White Death: A History of Tuberculosis. New York, NY, New York University Press, 2000.

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis Is Among the Major Infectious Killer Diseases

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is the main causative organism which attacks the lungs but can also infect other organs of the body. M.tuberculosis is an intracellular pathogen that is highly adapted to human.7The bacterium spread primarily through aerosolized infectious particles generated from coughing and sneezing by individuals with pulmonary tuberculosis and less commonly via skin wounds 8. The most important factors influencing the current TB epidemic in resource poor setting are closely related to malnutrition, overcrowded living conditions and lack of access to free or affordable health care services.9

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis In The Victorian Era

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is highly infectious, and can be passed on by contaminated particles in the air (Lerner and Lerner). However, since there was limited technology during the era, there were many different theories regarding the cause. Many considered the possibility of emotional causes. “Limited scientific knowledge regarding disease pathology opened the door to inductive speculation that tuberculosis might be caused directly or indirectly by the emotion, imagination, and creativity so obvious in its most famous victims.” (Boan 705-709) People believed that an individual could get the disease just from being too artistic or creative. Because of this, many strayed away from being open to artistic skills, or expressing creativity. In addition, Tuberculosis was also being associated with poverty and the environment. “…tuberculosis was also considered to be a sign of poverty or an inevitable outcome of the process of industrial civilization. About 40% of working-class deaths in cities were from tuberculosis.” ("Tuberculosis in Europe and North America, 1800–1922") There were many possible causes that the people of the Victorian Era were trying to figure out, though they were about to start a new journey of experiencing the actual effects of this unmerciful

    Read More

  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    Primary tuberculosis is the initial infection of the host, usually being mild and asymptomatic. A healthy person recently infected with the mycobacterium may exhibit flu-like symptoms and has no reason to suspect tuberculosis. Left untreated, the bacilli infect and multiply within pulmonary alveolar macrophages, migrating to the hilar lymph nodes. An immune response is exhibited by the T-helper cells, and inflammation develops at multiple sites. A person may test positive in the tuberculin skin test at this point, and a chest x-ray may shows opacities in the lungs.

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    Active tuberculosis only develops in about 10% of infected persons, remaining dormant in the rest; although the latent infection may later progress to active disease years later, especially in immune-compromised individuals. 9 Infection by MTBC may involve any organ of the body, but clinical presentation is most common in the lungs (pulmonary TB). General symptoms include fever, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue and severe cough with bloody sputum (hemoptysis) which may lead to death if untreated. 10 Mortality rates without treatment are high: in a study of natural history of TB in HIV-negative patients, 70% died within 10 years. 11 Tuberculosis remains a major health problem in the world...

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis Prevention

    1822 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tuberculosis has plagued mankind for a long time. This disease, which was previously believed to be eradicated, has once again shown up and begun attacking the lives of many humans. Tuberculosis infects a third of the population and kills a fraction of them. Many approaches have been used including different varieties of infection control, bodily defenses, and treatments to try to protect humans from tuberculosis. The best way to prevent tuberculosis infections is to contain the source of tuberculosis. The most common source of tuberculosis infection is from infected humans. By diagnosing, containing, and treating people with latent tuberculosis before they get active, contagious tuberculosis, tuberculosis can be quickly contained. Once someone has been diagnosed with TB, they should be placed under isolation.

    Read More

More about Tuberculosis

Open Document