HISTORY

Tuberculosis (TB) was a disease familiar to the most ancient civilizations, judging from the inscriptions on Babylonian tablets, which represent the earliest human records. Hippocrates (460–376 BC) was the first to give an intelligent description of this disease as “phthisis”, which meant to dry up. Aristotle, a contemporary of Hippocrates, notes that it was a general belief among the Greeks of his day that phthisis was contagious. A similar reference has been made in the Sanskrit works of the Indo-Aryans, namely the Rigveda (1500 BC), Ayurveda (700 BC), and in the Laws of Manu (1000 BC). Galen (AD 131–201) considered the disease an ulceration that should be treated by measures designed to dry the secretion. The Roman acquaintance with TB is reflected in the writings of Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), while John Bunyan called it “The Captain of the Men of Death”, referring to its devastating course and prognosis.

Lupus vulgaris seemed to have been prevalent in Palestine before and during the time of Christ, and was included in the conditions termed Tsara'ath in the Old Testament and Gospels. The origin of the Latin word for wolf, “lupus” is unclear, although its usage has been established in the Middle Ages. The great German pathologist, Rudolf Virchow, found that it had appeared in the writings of the Masters of the Salerno School of Medicine (circa 10th century). In 1808, Robert Willan, (1757–1812) the founder of British Dermatology, gave the term lupus to a nodular eruption on the face that progressed to ulceration.