title: History of tuberculosis

text: Signs of the disease have also been found in Egyptian mummies dated between 3000 and 2400 BC. The most convincing case was found in the mummy of priest Nesperehen, discovered by Grebart in 1881, which featured evidence of spinal tuberculosis with the characteristic psoas abscesses. Similar features were discovered on other mummies like that of the priest Philoc and throughout the cemeteries of Thebes. It appears likely that Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti both died from tuberculosis, and evidence indicates that hospitals for tuberculosis existed in Egypt as early as 1500 BC.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The Ebers papyrus, an important Egyptian medical treatise from around 1550 BC, describes a pulmonary consumption associated with the cervical lymph nodes. It recommended that it be treated with the surgical lancing of the cyst and the application of a ground mixture of acacia seyal, peas, fruits, animal blood, insect blood, honey and salt.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The Old Testament mentions a consumptive illness that would affect the Jewish people if they stray from God. It is listed in the section of curses given before they enter the land of Canaan.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The first references to tuberculosis in non-European civilization is found in the Vedas. The oldest of them (Rigveda, 1500 BC) calls the disease "yaksma". The Atharvaveda calls it "balasa". It is in the Atharvaveda that the first description of scrofula is given. The "Sushruta Samhita", written around 600 BC, recommends that the disease be treated with breast milk, various meats, alcohol and rest. The Yajurveda advises affected individuals to move to higher altitudes.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The Classical Chinese word "lào" 癆 "consumption; tuberculosis" was the common name in traditional Chinese medicine and "fèijiéhé" 肺結核 (lit. "lung knot kernel") "pulmonary tuberculosis" is the modern medical term. "Lao" is compounded in names like "xulao" 虛癆 with "empty; void", "láobìng" 癆病 with "sickness", "láozhài" 癆瘵 with "[archaic] sickness", and "feilao" 肺癆 with "lungs". Zhang and Unschuld explain that the medical term "xulao" 虛癆 "depletion exhaustion" includes infectious and consumptive pathologies, such as "laozhai" 癆瘵 "exhaustion with consumption" or "laozhaichong" 癆瘵蟲 "exhaustion consumption bugs/worms". They retrospectively identify "feilao" 肺癆 "lung exhaustion" and infectious "feilao chuanshi" 肺癆傳尸 "lung exhaustion by corpse [evil] transmission as "consumption/tuberculosis". Describing foreign loanwords in early medical terminology, Zhang and Unschuld note the phonetic similarity between Chinese "feixiao" 肺消 (from Old Chinese "**pʰot-ssew") "lung consumption" and ancient Greek "phthisis" "pulmonary tuberculosis".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The "Huangdi Neijing" classic Chinese medical text ( – 260 CE), traditionally attributed to the mythical Yellow Emperor, describes a disease believed to be tuberculosis, called "xulao bing" (虛癆病 "weak consumptive disease"), characterized by persistent cough, abnormal appearance, fever, a weak and fast pulse, chest obstructions, and shortness of breath.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The "Huangdi Neijing" describes an incurable disease called "huaifu" 壞府 "bad palace", which commentators interpret as tuberculous. "As for a string which is cut, its sound is hoarse. As for wood which has become old, its leaves are shed. As for a disease which is in the depth [of the body], the sound it [generates] is hiccup. When a man has these three [states], this is called 'destroyed palace'. Toxic drugs do not bring a cure; short needles cannot seize [the disease]. Wang Bing's commentary explains that "fu" 府 "palace" stands for "xiong" 胸 "chest", and "huai" "destroy" implies "injure the palace and seize the disease". The "Huangdi Neijing" compiler Yang Shangshan notes, "The [disease] proposed here very much resembles tuberculosis ... Hence [the text] states: poisonous drugs bring no cure; it cannot be seized with short needles."


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The "Shennong Bencaojing" pharmacopeia (–250 CE), attributed to the legendary inventor of agriculture Shennong "Divine Farmer", also refers to tuberculosis


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The "Zhouhou beiji fang" 肘后备急方 "Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies", attributed to the Daoist scholar Ge Hong (263–420), uses the name of "shizhu" 尸疰 "corpse disease; tuberculosis" and describes the symptoms and contagion:


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Song dynasty (920–1279) Daoist priest-doctors first recorded that tuberculosis, called "shīzhài" 尸瘵 (lit. "corpse disease") "disease which changes a living being into a corpse", was caused by a specific parasite or pathogen, centuries earlier than their contemporaries in other countries. The "Duanchu shizhai pin" 斷除尸瘵品 "On the Extermination of the Corpse Disease" is the 23rd chapter in Daoist collection "Wushang xuanyuan santian Yutang dafa" 無上玄元三天玉堂大法 "Great Rites of the Jade Hall of the Three Heavens of the Supreme Mysterious Origins" ("Daozang" number 103). The text has a preface dated 1126, written by the Song dynasty Zhengyi Dao master Lu Shizhong 路時中, who founded the Yutang dafa 玉堂大法 tradition, but internal evidence reveals that the text could not have been written before 1158.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: This passage refers to the cause of TB in ancient medical terminology of "jiuchong" 九蟲 "Nine Worms" and "gu" 蠱 "supernatural agents causing disease", and "qi". The Nine Worms generically meant "bodily parasites; intestinal worms" and were associated with the "sanshi" 三尸 "Three Corpses" or "sanchong" 三蟲 "Three Worms", which were believed to be biospiritual parasites that live in the human body and seek to hasten their host's death.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Daoist medical texts give different lists and descriptions of the Nine Worms. The "Boji fang" 博濟方 "Prescriptions for Universal Dispensation", collected by Wang Gun王袞 (fl. 1041), calls the supposed TB pathogen "laochong" 癆蟲 "tuberculosis worms".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: This "Duanchu shizhai pin" chapter (23/7b-8b) explains that the present Nine Worms does not refer to the intestinal "weichong" 胃蟲 "stomach worms", "huichong" 蛔蟲 "coiling worm; roundworm", or "cun baichong" 寸白蟲 "inch-long white worm; nematode", and says the supposed six TB worms are "six kinds" of parasites, but the next chapter (24/20a-21b) says they are "six stages/generations" of reproduction. Daoist priests allegedly cured tuberculosis through drugs, acupuncture, and burning "fulu" "supernatural talismans/charms". Burning magic talismans would cause the TB patient to cough, which was considered an effective treatment.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In addition, Daoist healers would burn talismans in order to fumigate the clothes and belongings of the deceased, and would warn the tuberculosis patient's family to throw away everything into a "changliu shui" 長流水 "everflowing stream". According to Liu Ts'un-yan, "This proves that the priests of the time actually wanted to destroy all the belongings of the deceased, using charms as a camouflage."


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Hippocrates, in Book 1 of his "Of the Epidemics," describes the characteristics of the disease: fever, colourless urine, cough resulting in a thick sputa, and loss of thirst and appetite. He notes that most of those affected became delirious before they died from the disease. Hippocrates and many other at the time believed phthisis to be hereditary in nature. Aristotle disagreed, believing the disease was contagious.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to Priscus in which he details the symptoms of phthisis as he saw them in Fannia:


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Galen proposed a series of therapeutic treatments for the disease, including: opium as a sleeping agent and painkiller; blood letting; a diet of barley water, fish, and fruit. He also described the phyma (tumor) of the lungs, which is thought to correspond to the tubercles that form on the lung as a result of the disease.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Vitruvius noted that "cold in the windpipe, cough, plurisy, phthisis, [and] spitting blood", were common diseases in regions where the wind blew from north to northwest, and advised that walls be so built as to shelter individuals from the winds.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Aretaeus was the first person to rigorously describe the symptoms of the disease in his text "De causis et signis diuturnorum morborum":


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In his other book "De curatione diuturnorum morborum", he recommends that affected individuals travel to high altitudes, travel by sea, eat a good diet and drink plenty of milk.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In South America, reports of a study in August 2014 revealed that TB had likely been spread via seals that contracted it on beaches of Africa, from humans via domesticated animals, and carried it across the Atlantic. A team at the University of Tübingen analyzed tuberculosis DNA in 1,000-year-old skeletons of the Chiribaya culture in southern Peru; so much genetic material was recovered that they could reconstruct the genome. They learned that this TB strain was related most closely to a form found only in seals. In South America, it was likely contracted first by hunters who handled contaminated meat. This TB is a different strain from that prevalent today in the Americas, which is more closely related to a later Eurasian strain.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Prior to this study, the first evidence of the disease in South America was found in remains of the Arawak culture around 1050 BC. The most significant finding belongs to the mummy of an 8 to 10-year-old Nascan child from Hacienda Agua Sala, dated to 700 AD. Scientists were able to isolate evidence of the bacillus.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: During the Middle Ages, no significant advances were made regarding tuberculosis. Avicenna and Rhazes continued to consider to believe the disease was both contagious and difficult to treat. Arnaldus de Villa Nova described etiopathogenic theory directly related to that of Hippocrates, in which a cold humor dripped from the head into the lungs.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In Medieval Hungary, the Inquisition recorded the trials of pagans. A document from the 12th century recorded an explanation of the cause of illness. The pagans said that tuberculosis was produced when a dog-shaped demon occupied the person's body and started to eat his lungs. When the possessed person coughed, then the demon was barking, and getting close to his objective, which was to kill the victim.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Monarchs were seen as religious figures with magical or curative powers. It was believed that royal touch, the touch of the sovereign of England or France, could cure diseases due to the divine right of sovereigns. King Henry IV of France usually performed the rite once a week, after taking communion. So common was this practice of royal healing in France, that scrofula became known as the ""mal du roi"" or the "King's Evil".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Initially, the touching ceremony was an informal process. Sickly individuals could petition the court for a royal touch and the touch would be performed at the King's earliest convenience. At times, the King of France would touch affected subjects during his royal walkabout. The rapid spread of tuberculosis across France and England, however, necessitated a more formal and efficient touching process. By the time of Louis XIV of France, placards indicating the days and times the King would be available for royal touches were posted regularly; sums of money were doled out as charitable support. In England, the process was extremely formal and efficient. As late as 1633, the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church contained a Royal Touch ceremony. The monarch (king or queen), sitting upon a canopied throne, touched the affected individual, and presented that individual with a coin – usually an Angel, a gold coin the value of which varied from about 6 shillings to about 10 shillings – by pressing it against the affected's neck.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Although the ceremony was of no medical value, members of the royal courts often propagandized that those receiving the royal touch were miraculously healed. André du Laurens, the senior physician of Henry IV, publicized findings that at least half of those that received the royal touch were cured within a few days. The royal touch remained popular into the 18th century. Parish registers from Oxfordshire, England include not only records of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, but also records of those eligible for the royal touch.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Girolamo Fracastoro became the first person to propose, in his work "De contagione" in 1546, that phthisis was transmitted by an invisible "virus". Among his assertions were that the "virus" could survive between "two or three years" on the clothes of those with the disease and that it was usually transmitted through direct contact or the discharged fluids of the infected, what he called "fomes". He noted that phthisis could be contracted without either direct contact or fomes, but was unsure of the process by which the disease propagated across distances.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Paracelsus advanced the belief that tuberculosis was caused by a failure of an internal organ to accomplish its alchemical duties. When this occurred in the lungs, stony precipitates would develop causing tuberculosis in what he called the "tartaric" process.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Franciscus Sylvius began differentiating between the various forms of tuberculosis (pulmonary, ganglion). He was the first person to recognize that the skin ulcers caused by scrofula resembled tubercles seen in phthisis, noting that "phthisis is the scrofula of the lung" in his book "Opera Medica", published posthumously in 1679. Around the same time, Thomas Willis concluded that all diseases of the chest must ultimately lead to consumption. Willis did not know the exact cause of the disease but he blamed it on sugar or an acidity of the blood. Richard Morton published "Phthisiologia, seu exercitationes de Phthisi tribus libris comprehensae" in 1689, in which he emphasized the tubercle as the true cause of the disease. So common was the disease at the time that Morton is quoted as saying "I cannot sufficiently admire that anyone, at least after he comes to the flower of his youth, can dye without a touch of consumption."


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In 1720, Benjamin Marten proposed in "A New Theory of Consumptions more Especially of Phthisis or Consumption of the Lungs" that the cause of tuberculosis was some type of "animalcula"—microscopic living beings that are able to survive in a new body (similar to the ones described by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1695). The theory was roundly rejected and it took another 162 years before Robert Koch demonstrated it to be true.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In 1768, Robert Whytt gave the first clinical description of tuberculosis meningitis and, in 1779, Percivall Pott, an English surgeon, described the vertebral lesions that carry his name. In 1761, Leopold Auenbrugger, an Austrian physician, developed the percussion method of diagnosing tuberculosis, a method rediscovered some years later in 1797 by Jean-Nicolas Corvisart of France. After finding it useful, Corvisart made it readily available to the academic community by translating it into French.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: William Stark proposed that ordinary lung tubercles could eventually evolve into ulcers and cavities, believing that the different forms of tuberculosis were simply different manifestations of the same disease. Unfortunately, Stark died at the age of 30 (while studying scurvy) and his observations were discounted. In his "Systematik de speziellen Pathologie und Therapie", J. L. Schönlein, Professor of Medicine in Zurich, proposed that the word "tuberculosis" be used to describe the condition of tubercles.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The incidence of tuberculosis grew progressively during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, displacing leprosy, peaking between the 18th and 19th century as field workers moved to the cities looking for work. When he released his study in 1808, William Woolcombe was astonished at the prevalence of tuberculosis in 18th-century England. Of the 1,571 deaths in the English city of Bristol between 1790 and 1796, 683 were due to tuberculosis. Remote towns, initially isolated from the disease, slowly succumbed. The consumption deaths in the village of Holycross in Shropshire between 1750 and 1759 were one in six (1:6); ten years later, 1:3. In the metropolis of London, 1:7 died from consumption at the dawn of the 18th century, by 1750 that proportion grew to 1:5.25 and surged to 1:4.2 by around the start of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution coupled with poverty and squalor created the optimal environment for the propagation of the disease.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In the 18th and 19th century, tuberculosis (TB) had become epidemic in Europe, showing a seasonal pattern. In the 18th century, TB had a mortality rate as high as 900 deaths (800–1000) per 100,000 population per year in Western Europe, including in places like London, Stockholm and Hamburg. Similar death rate occurred in North America. In the United Kingdom, epidemic TB may have peaked around 1750, as suggested by mortality data.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In the 19th century, TB killed about a quarter of the adult population of Europe. In western continental Europe, epidemic TB may have peaked in the first half of the 19th century. In addition, between 1851 and 1910, around four million died from TB in England and Wales – more than one third of those aged 15 to 34 and half of those aged 20 to 24 died from TB. By the late 19th century, 70–90% of the urban populations of Europe and North America were infected with the "Mycobacterium tuberculosis", and about 80% of those individuals who developed active TB died of it. However, mortality rates began declining in the late 19th century throughout Europe and the United States.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: At the time, tuberculosis was called "the robber of youth," because the disease had higher death rate among young people. Other names included "the" "Great White Plague" and "the White Death", where the "white" was due to the extreme anaemic pallor of those infected. In addition, TB has been called by many as the "Captain of All These Men of Death".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: It was during this century that tuberculosis was dubbed the White Plague, "mal de vivre", and "mal du siècle". It was seen as a "romantic disease". Individuals with tuberculosis were thought to have heightened sensitivity. The slow progress of the disease allowed for a "good death" as those affected could arrange their affairs. The disease began to represent spiritual purity and temporal wealth, leading many young, upper-class women to purposefully pale their skin to achieve the consumptive appearance. British poet Lord Byron wrote, "I should like to die from consumption", helping to popularize the disease as the disease of artists. George Sand doted on her phthisic lover, Frédéric Chopin, calling him her "poor melancholy angel".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In France, at least five novels were published expressing the ideals of tuberculosis: Dumas's "La Dame aux camélias", Murger's "Scènes de la vie de Bohème", Hugo's "Les Misérables", the Goncourt brothers' "Madame Gervaisais" and "Germinie Lacerteux", and Rostand's "L'Aiglon". The portrayals by Dumas and Murger in turn inspired operatic depictions of consumption in Verdi's "La traviata" and Puccini's "La bohème". Even after medical knowledge of the disease had accumulated, the redemptive-spiritual perspective of the disease has remained popular (as seen in the 2001 film "Moulin Rouge" based in part on "La traviata" and the musical adaptations of "Les Misérables").


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In large cities the poor had high rates of tuberculosis. Public-health physicians and politicians typically blamed both the poor themselves and their ramshackle tenement houses (conventillos) for the spread of the dreaded disease. People ignored public-health campaigns to limit the spread of contagious diseases, such as the prohibition of spitting on the streets, the strict guidelines to care for infants and young children, and quarantines that separated families from ill loved ones.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Though removed from the cultural movement, the scientific understanding advanced considerably. By the end of the 19th century, several major breakthroughs gave hope that a cause and cure might be found.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: One of the most important physicians dedicated to the study of phthisiology was René Laennec, who died from the disease at the age of 45, after contracting tuberculosis while studying contagious patients and infected bodies. Laennec invented the stethoscope which he used to corroborate his auscultatory findings and prove the correspondence between the pulmonary lesions found on the lungs of autopsied tuberculosis patients and the respiratory symptoms seen in living patients. His most important work was "Traité de l'Auscultation Médiate" which detailed his discoveries on the utility of pulmonary auscultation in diagnosing tuberculosis. This book was promptly translated into English by John Forbes in 1821; it represents the beginning of the modern scientific understanding of tuberculosis. Laennec was named professional chair of Hôpital Necker in September 1816 and today he is considered the greatest French clinician.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Laennec's work put him in contact with the vanguard of the French medical establishment, including Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis. Louis would go on to use statistical methods to evaluate the different aspects of the disease's progression, the efficacy of various therapies and individuals' susceptibility, publishing an article in the "Annales d'hygiène publique" entitled "Note on the Relative Frequency of Phthisis in the Two Sexes". Another good friend and co-worker of Laennec, Gaspard Laurent Bayle, published an article in 1810 entitled "Recherches sur la Pthisie Pulmonaire", in which he divided pthisis into six types: tubercular phthisis, glandular phthisis, ulcerous phthisis, phthisis with melanosis, calculous phthisis, and cancerous phthisis. He based his findings on more than 900 autopsies.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In 1869, Jean Antoine Villemin demonstrated that the disease was indeed contagious, conducting an experiment in which tuberculous matter from human cadavers was injected into laboratory rabbits, which then became infected.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: On 24 March 1882, Robert Koch revealed the disease was caused by an infectious agent. In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the X-ray, which allowed physicians to diagnose and track the progression of the disease, and although an effective medical treatment would not come for another fifty years, the incidence and mortality of tuberculosis began to decline.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Villemin's experiments had confirmed the contagious nature of the disease and had forced the medical community to accept that tuberculosis was indeed an infectious disease, transmitted by some etiological agent of unknown origin. In 1882, Prussian physician Robert Koch utilized a new staining method and applied it to the sputum of tuberculosis patients, revealing for the first time the causal agent of the disease: "Mycobacterium tuberculosis", or Koch's bacillus.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: When he began his investigation, Koch knew of the work of Villemin and others who had continued his experiments like Julius Conheim and Carl Salmosen. He also had access to the "pthisis ward" at the Berlin Charité Hospital. Before he confronted the problem of tuberculosis, he worked with the disease caused by anthrax and had discovered the causal agent to be "Bacillus anthracis". During this investigation he became friends with Ferdinand Cohn, the director of the Institute of Vegetable Physiology. Together they worked to develop methods of culturing tissue samples. 18 August 1881, while staining tuberculous material with methylene blue, he noticed oblong structures, though he was not able to ascertain whether it was just a result of the coloring. To improve the contrast, he decide to add Bismarck Brown, after which the oblong structures were rendered bright and transparent. He improved the technique by varying the concentration of alkali in the staining solution until the ideal viewing conditions for the bacilli was achieved.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: After numerous attempts he was able to incubate the bacteria in coagulated blood serum at 37 degrees Celsius. He then inoculated laboratory rabbits with the bacteria and observed that they died while exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis, proving that the bacillus, which he named "tuberculosis bacillus", was in fact the cause of tuberculosis.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: He made his result public at the Physiological Society of Berlin on 24 March 1882, in a famous lecture entitled "Über Tuberculose", which was published three weeks later. Since 1882, 24 March has been known as World Tuberculosis Day.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: On 20 April 1882, Koch presented an article entitled "Die Ätiologie der Tuberculose" in which he demonstrated that "Mycobacterium" was the single cause of tuberculosis in all of its forms.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In 1890 Koch developed tuberculin, a purified protein derivative of the bacteria. Data on experimental inquiry published in Deutsche Landwirthschafts-Zeitung provided immediate practical industry benefits in the form of the Tuberculin test as an aide to diagnosis in both sick and healthy cattle. Tuberculin proved to be an ineffective means of immunization but in 1908, Charles Mantoux found it was an effective intradermic test for diagnosing tuberculosis.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The advancement of scientific understanding of tuberculosis, and its contagious nature created the need for institutions to house affected individuals.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The first proposal for a tuberculosis facility was made in paper by George Bodington entitled "An essay on the treatment and cure of pulmonary consumption, on principles natural, rational and successful" in 1840. In this paper, he proposed a dietary, rest, and medical care program for a hospital he planned to found in Maney. Attacks from numerous medical experts, especially articles in "The Lancet", disheartened Bodington and he turned to plans for housing the insane.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Around the same time in the United States, in late October and early November 1842, Dr. John Croghan, the owner of Mammoth Cave, brought 15 tuberculosis patients into the cave in the hope of curing the disease with the constant temperature and purity of the cave air. Patients were lodged in stone huts, and each was supplied with a slave to bring meals. One patient, A. H. P. Anderson, wrote glowing reviews of the cave experience:


title: History of tuberculosis

text: By late January, early February 1843, two patients were dead and the rest had left. Departing patients died anywhere from three days to three weeks after resurfacing; John Croghan died of tuberculosis at his Louisville residence in 1849.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Hermann Brehmer, a German physician, was convinced that tuberculosis arose from the difficulty of the heart to correctly irrigate the lungs. He therefore proposed that regions well above sea level, where the atmospheric pressure was less, would help the heart function more effectively. With the encouragement of explorer Alexander von Humboldt and his teacher J. L. Schönlein, the first anti-tuberculosis sanatorium was established in 1854, 650 meters above sea level, at Görbersdorf. Three years later he published his findings in a paper "Die chronische Lungenschwindsucht und Tuberkulose der Lunge: Ihre Ursache und ihre Heilung".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Brehmer and one of his patients, Peter Dettweiler, became proponents for the sanatorium movement, and by 1877, sanatoriums began to spread beyond Germany and throughout Europe. Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau subsequently founded the Adirondack Cottage Sanitorium in Saranac Lake, New York in 1884. One of Trudeau's early patients was author Robert Louis Stevenson; his fame helped establish Saranac Lake as a center for the treatment of tuberculosis. In 1894, after a fire destroyed Trudeau's small home laboratory, he organized the Saranac Laboratory for the Study of Tuberculosis; renamed the Trudeau Institute, the laboratory continues to study infectious diseases.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Peter Dettweiler went on to found his own sanatorium at Falkenstein in 1877 and in 1886 published findings claiming that 132 of his 1022 patients had been completely cured after staying at his institution. Eventually, sanatoriums began to appear near large cities and at low altitudes, like the Sharon Sanatorium in 1890 near Boston.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Sanatoriums were not the only treatment facilities. Specialized tuberculosis clinics began to develop in major metropolitan areas. Sir Robert Philip established the Royal Victoria Dispensary for Consumption in Edinburgh in 1887. Dispensaries acted as special sanatoriums for early tuberculosis cases and were opened to lower income individuals. The use of dispensaries to treat middle and lower-class individuals in major metropolitan areas and the coordination between various levels of health services programs like hospitals, sanatoriums, and tuberculosis colonies became known as the "Edinburgh Anti-tuberculosis Scheme".


title: History of tuberculosis

text: At the beginning of the 20th century, tuberculosis was one of the UK's most urgent health problems. A royal commission was set up in 1901, The Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Relations of Human and Animal Tuberculosis. Its remit was to find out whether tuberculosis in animals and humans was the same disease, and whether animals and humans could infect each other. By 1919, the Commission had evolved into the UK's Medical Research Council.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In 1902, the International Conference on Tuberculosis convened in Berlin. Among various other acts, the conference proposed the Cross of Lorraine be the international symbol of the fight against tuberculosis. National campaigns spread across Europe and the United States to tamp down on the continued prevalence of tuberculosis.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: After the establishment in the 1880s that the disease was contagious, TB was made a notifiable disease in Britain; there were campaigns to stop spitting in public places, and the infected poor were pressured to enter sanatoria that resembled prisons; the sanatoria for the middle and upper classes offered excellent care and constant medical attention. Whatever the purported benefits of the fresh air and labor in the sanatoria, even under the best conditions, 50% of those who entered were dead within five years (1916).


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The promotion of Christmas Seals began in Denmark during 1904 as a way to raise money for tuberculosis programs. It expanded to the United States and Canada in 1907–1908 to help the National Tuberculosis Association (later called the American Lung Association).


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In the United States, concern about the spread of tuberculosis played a role in the movement to prohibit public spitting except into spittoons.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The first genuine success in immunizing against tuberculosis was developed from attenuated bovine-strain tuberculosis by Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin in 1906. It was called "BCG" ("Bacille Calmette-Guérin"). The BCG vaccine was first used on humans in 1921 in France, but it was not until after World War II that BCG received widespread acceptance in Great Britain, and Germany. In the early days of the British National Health Service X-ray examination for TB increased dramatically but rates of vaccination were initially very low. In 1953 it was agreed that secondary school pupils should be vaccinated, but by the end of 1954 only 250,000 people had been vaccinated. By 1956 this had risen to 600,000, about half being school children.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In Italy, Salvioli's diffusing vaccine (; VDS) was used from 1948 until 1976. It was developed by Professor Gaetano Salvioli (1894–1982) of the University of Bologna.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: As the century progressed, some surgical interventions, including the pneumothorax or plombage technique—collapsing an infected lung to "rest" it and allow the lesions to heal—were used to treat tuberculosis. Pneumothorax was not a new technique by any means. In 1696, Giorgio Baglivi reported a general improvement in tuberculosis patients after they received sword wounds to the chest. F.H. Ramadge induced the first successful therapeutic pneumothorax in 1834, and reported subsequently the patient was cured. It was in the 20th century, however, that scientists sought to rigorously investigate the effectiveness of such procedures. Carlo Forlanini experimented with his artificial pneumothorax technique from 1882 to 1888 and this started to be followed only years later. In 1939, the "British Journal of Tuberculosis" published a study by Oli Hjaltested and Kjeld Törning on 191 patients undergoing the procedure between 1925 and 1931; in 1951, Roger Mitchell published several articles on the therapeutic outcomes of 557 patients treated between 1930 and 1939 at Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake. The search for a medicinal cure, however, continued in earnest.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: During the Nazi occupation of Poland, SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe organized the execution of more than 30,000 Polish patients with tuberculosis – little knowing or caring that a cure was nearly at hand. In Canada, doctors continued to surgically remove TB in the indigenous patients during the 1950s and 60s, even though the procedure was no longer performed on non-Indigenous patients.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In 1944 Albert Schatz, Elizabeth Bugie, and Selman Waksman isolated streptomycin produced by a bacterial strain "Streptomyces griseus." Streptomycin was the first effective antibiotic against "M. tuberculosis". This discovery is generally considered the beginning of the modern era of tuberculosis. Para-aminosalicylic acid, discovered in 1946, was used in combination with Streptomycin to reduce the emergence of drug resistant variants, which greatly improved patient outcomes. The true revolution began some years later, in 1952, with the development of isoniazid, the first oral mycobactericidal drug. The advent of rifampin in the 1970s hastened recovery times, and significantly reduced the number of tuberculosis cases until the 1980s.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: The British epidemiologist Thomas McKeown had shown that "treatment by streptomycin reduced the number of deaths since it was introduced (1948–71) by 51 per cent...". However, he also showed that the mortality from TB in England and Wales had already declined by 90 to 95% before streptomycin and BCG-vaccination were widely available, and that the contribution of antibiotics to the decline of mortality from TB was actually very small: "...for the total period since cause of death was first recorded (1848–71) the reduction was 3.2 per cent". These figures have since been confirmed for all western countries (see for example the decline in TB mortality in the USA) and for all then known infectious diseases. McKeown explained the decline in mortality from infectious diseases by an improved standard of living, particularly by better nutrition, and by better hygiene, and less by medical intervention. McKeown, who is considered as the father of social medicine, has advocated for many years, that with drugs and vaccines we may win the battle but will lose the war against Diseases of Poverty. Thereto, efforts and resources should be primarily directed toward improving the standard of living of people in low resource countries, and toward improving their environment by providing clean water, sanitation, better housing, education, safety and justice, and access to medical care. Particularly the work of Nobel laureates Robert W. Fogel (1993) and Angus Deaton (2015) have greatly contributed to the recent reappreciation of the McKeown thesis. A negative confirmation of the McKeown thesis was that increased pressure on wages by IMF loans to post-communist Eastern Europe were strongly associated with a rise in TB incidence, prevalence and mortality.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In the United States there was dramatic reduction in tuberculosis cases by the 1970s. As early as the 1900s, public health campaigns were launched to educate people about the contagion. In later decades, posters, pamphlets and newspapers continued to inform people about the risk of contagion and methods to avoid it, including increasing public awareness about the importance of good hygiene. Though improved awareness of good hygiene practices reduced the number of cases, the situation was worse in the poor neighborhoods. Public clinics were set up to improve awareness and provide screenings. In Scotland, Dr Nora Wattie led the public health innovations both at local and national level. This resulted in sharp declines through the 1920s and 1930s.


title: History of tuberculosis

text: Hopes that the disease could be completely eliminated were dashed in the 1980s with the rise of drug-resistant strains. Tuberculosis cases in Britain, numbering around 117,000 in 1913, had fallen to around 5,000 in 1987, but cases rose again, reaching 6,300 in 2000 and 7,600 cases in 2005. Due to the elimination of public health facilities in New York and the emergence of HIV, there was a resurgence of TB in the late 1980s. The number of patients failing to complete their course of drugs was high. New York had to cope with more than 20,000 TB patients with multidrug-resistant strains (resistant to, at least, both rifampin and isoniazid).


title: History of tuberculosis

text: In response to the resurgence of tuberculosis, the World Health Organization issued a declaration of a global health emergency in 1993. Every year, nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are estimated to occur worldwide.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: From Paris with Love is a 2010 English-language French action thriller film directed by Pierre Morel and starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The screenplay was co-written by Luc Besson. The film was released in the United States on February 5, 2010 by Lionsgate Films and internationally by Warner Bros. Pictures.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: James Reese, a personal aide to the U.S. ambassador in France, lives comfortably in Paris with his girlfriend Caroline, but his real passion is his side job as a low-level operative for the CIA. Due to a shortage of operatives in France, he is eventually partnered with field agent Charlie Wax. However, Reese finds Wax detained by French Customs as Wax refuses to surrender cans of his favorite energy drink. Despite the apparent triviality of the situation, Wax continues to verbally abuse French Customs until Reese uses his diplomatic authority to allow Wax's luggage through customs.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: Once in the car, Wax apologizes for his behavior and reveals that the cans actually held pieces of his personal sidearm. Wax then explains that he has been sent to Paris to investigate a Triad drug ring indirectly responsible for the death of the niece of the Secretary of Defense. During the investigation, Wax raids a Triad run restaurant and warehouse where he reveals that his true objective is to trace money back to a circle of Pakistani terrorists. Evidence leads them to the terrorist hideout in a rundown apartment, resulting in an armed confrontation wherein most of the terrorists are killed. There, Wax and Reese learn that the terrorists plan to infiltrate the U.S. embassy with explosives hidden beneath their burkas. As they collect evidence, they find photographs of Reese pinned to a wall.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: Ultimately, Reese learns that the terrorists are targeting a summit meeting. During dinner, Wax realizes that Reese's fiancée Caroline is a sleeper agent who was assigned to infiltrate them. When confronted, Caroline shoots Reese in the shoulder and escapes through a window, before a car picks her up on the street below. Caroline plans to detonate an explosive vest at the summit while the other remaining terrorist speeds towards a US motorcade in an attempted suicide attack, although Wax destroys the vehicle with a rocket launcher just in time. Reese then finds Caroline at the summit and attempts to dissuade her from carrying out her mission, but she attempts to detonate her vest anyway and Reese is ultimately forced to kill her. As the U.S. official from the motorcade arrives at the summit, she berates Reese for inconveniencing her, and Wax reminds Reese of the often ungrateful and ignorant people they protect.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: As Wax leaves Paris, Reese escorts him to his plane, where Wax offers a full-time partnership. The two play a game of chess on the tarmac, placing their handguns on a utility cart, Reese revealing that he is now carrying a Desert Eagle pistol, and Wax welcomes him to the club as his partner.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: The film has received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 37% with an average score of 4.80/10. The site’s critical consensus states, "Though not without its charms—chief among them John Travolta's endearingly over-the-top performance—"From Paris with Love" is too muddled and disjointed to satisfy." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave it one star out of four, stating, ""From Paris With Love" has no vital signs at all, just crushing dull repetition that makes one noisy, violent scene play exactly like the last one." A couple of reviews from SBS and "Newshub" criticised the film for "ludicrous" plot developments and racism.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: The film opened in the US on February 5, 2010 and took $8,158,860 on its opening weekend, ranked number 3 in the charts in 2,722 theaters. The movie was open in the US until March 11, 2010, a total of 5 weeks. Its final US domestic gross was $24,077,427. It also took just over $28m internationally for a worldwide total of $52,365,407- just grossing back its $52m budget. In July 2010 "Parade Magazine" listed the film as number 4 on its list of "Biggest Box Office Flops of 2010 (So Far)."


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: The movie was released on DVD in the US on June 8, 2010 and sold 624,791 units for a gross of $11,085,323. It was the third biggest selling DVD in its opening week, behind "Alice in Wonderland" and "Shutter Island", with 293,011 units sold. The movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on August 2, 2010.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: In an interview with "Celebrity Examiner", Luc Besson commented that he would love to see "From Paris With Love" turn into a franchise with sequels.


title: From Paris with Love (film)

text: Travolta said in an interview with "The Star Ledger": "We could do, ‘From London With Love,’ ‘From Prague With Love.’ This is one of the only movies that I would enjoy as a franchise. I’m not a big sequel person, but this one I would love."


title: Investigations into the origin of COVID-19

text: There are several ongoing efforts by scientists, governments, international organisations, and others to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Most scientists say that as with other pandemics in human history, the virus is likely of zoonotic origin in a natural setting, and ultimately originated from a bat-borne virus. Many other explanations, including several conspiracy theories, have been proposed about the origins of the virus. Some scientists and politicians have speculated that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory, but this theory is considered much less likely than a natural origin due to the absence of supporting evidence.


text: SARS-CoV-2 has close genetic similarity to multiple previously identified bat coronaviruses, suggesting it crossed over into humans from bats. Research is ongoing as to whether SARS-CoV-2 came directly from bats or indirectly through any intermediate hosts. Initial genome sequences of the virus showed little genetic diversity, although subsequently a number of stable variants emerged (some spreading more vigorously), indicating that the spillover event introducing SARS-CoV-2 to humans is likely to have occurred in late 2019. Health authorities and scientists internationally state that as with the 2002–2004 outbreak of SARS-1, efforts to trace the specific geographic and taxonomic origins of SARS-CoV-2 could take years, and the results could be inconclusive.


text: In January 2021, the World Health Assembly (decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO)) commissioned a study on the origins of the virus, to be conducted jointly between WHO experts and Chinese scientists. In March 2021, the findings of this study were published online in a report to the WHO Commissioner-General. Echoing the assessment of most virologists, the report determined that the virus most likely had a zoonotic origin in bats, possibly transmitted through an intermediate host. It also stated that a laboratory origin for the virus was "extremely unlikely".


text: Scientists found the conclusions of the WHO report to be helpful but noted that more work was needed. In the United States, the European Union, and other countries, some criticised the lack of transparency and data access in the report's formulation. The WHO issued its 30 March report alongside a statement of the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying that the matter "requires further investigation". The U.S. government and 13 other countries and the EU issued statements on the same day, echoing Tedros's critique of the report for lacking transparency and data access in its formulation. In a later press conference, the WHO director-general said it was "premature" for the WHO's report to rule out a potential link between a laboratory leak and called on China to provide 'raw data' and lab audits in a second phase of investigations. On 12 October 2021, the WHO announced a new team to study the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2022, this team released an additional report advocating for more investigations in the various possible pathways of emergence, including the possibility of a lab leak.


text: Earlier, on 22 July 2021, the Chinese government had held a press conference in which Zeng Yixin, Vice Health Minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), said that China would not participate in a second phase of the WHO's investigation, denouncing it as "shocking" and "arrogant". In response to the WHO's June 2022 report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the lab leak theory "a lie concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes, which has nothing to do with science".


text: COVID-19 is caused by infection with a virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 appears to have originated in bats and to have spread to humans by zoonotic transfer. Its exact evolutionary history, the identity and provenance of its most recent ancestors, and the place, time, and mechanism of transmission of the first human infection, remain unknown. The biology and regional distribution of other coronaviruses in southeast Asia, including SARS-CoV, help scientists understand more about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.


text: Taxonomically, SARS-CoV-2 is a virus of the species "severe acute respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus" (SARSr-CoV). It is believed to have zoonotic origins and has close genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, suggesting it emerged from a bat-borne virus. Research is ongoing as to whether SARS-CoV-2 came directly from bats or indirectly through any intermediate hosts. The virus shows little genetic diversity, indicating that the spillover event introducing SARS-CoV-2 to humans is likely to have occurred in late 2019. Ultimately, the specific evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2 in relation to other coronaviruses will be critical to understanding how, where and when the virus spilled over into a human population.


text: Available scientific evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural zoonotic origin. Yet its origin, which remains unknown, has become debated within the context of global geopolitical tensions. Early in the pandemic, conspiracy theories spread on social media claiming that the virus was a biological weapon developed by China, amplified by echo chambers in the American far-right. Other conspiracy theories promoted misinformation that the virus is not communicable or was created to profit from new vaccines.


text: Some politicians and scientists have speculated that the virus may have accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This has led to calls in the media for further investigations into the matter. Many virologists who have studied coronaviruses consider the possibility very remote. The WHO-convened Global Study of the Origins of SARS-CoV-2 from March 2021 stated that such an explanation is extremely unlikely. In an interview on 12 August 2021, Peter Ben Embarek, the chief investigator of the WHO team, told a Danish TV documentary that the WHO team felt pressured from Chinese scientists to put "extremely unlikely" as their assessment.


text: A 2021 study found possible links between climate change and transmission of COVID-19 by bats. The authors found that climate-driven changes in the distribution and richness of bat species harboring coronaviruses may have occurred leading to a concentration of such species in eastern Asian hotspots (southern China, Myanmar and Laos). Tell conditions favors transmission of viruses. In this area live pangolins that are sold among other in the Wuhan wet market and are suspected of being the intermediate host in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 who cause the pandemic. The study was cited at 22 other studies in the National Library of Medicine of the USA. Before World Health Day 2022, the World Health Organization mentioned on its site that: "There is growing evidence of a direct connection between environmental change and the emergence or transmission of COVID-19".


text: The origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been the subject of debate. There are multiple proposed explanations for how SARS-CoV-2 was introduced into, and evolved adaptations suited to, the human population. There is significant evidence and agreement that the most likely original viral reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 is horseshoe bats, with the closest known viral relative being RaTG13. The evolutionary distance between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is estimated to be about 50 years (between 38 and 72 years). The earliest human cases of SARS-CoV-2 were identified in Wuhan, but the index case remains unknown. RaTG13 was sampled from bats in Yunnan, located roughly away from Wuhan, and there are relatively few bat coronaviruses from Hubei province. Each origin hypothesis attempts to explain this gap in virus evolution and location a different way. These scenarios continue to be investigated to identify the definitive origin of the virus.


text: The most direct pathway of introduction is direct zoonotic transmission (also known as spillover) from the reservoir species to humans. Scientists consider this to be a highly likely origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in humans. Human contact with bats has increased as human population centers encroach on bat habitats, leading to increased opportunities for spillover. Bats are a significant reservoir species for a diverse range of coronaviruses, and humans have been found with antibodies for them suggesting that this form of direct infection by bats is common. However, in this scenario, the direct ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 remains undiscovered in bats.


text: In addition to direct spillover, another pathway, considered highly likely by scientists, is that of transmission through an intermediate host. Specifically, this implies that a cross species transmission occurred prior to the human outbreak and that it had pathogenic results on the animal. This pathway has the potential to allow for greater adaptation to human transmission via animals with more similar protein shapes to humans, though this is not required for the scenario to occur. The evolutionary separation from bat viruses is explained in this case by the virus' presence in an unknown species with less viral surveillance than bats. The virus' ability to easily infect and adapt to additional species (including mink) provides evidence that such a route of transmission is possible.


text: Another proposed introduction to humans is through fresh or frozen food products, referred to as the cold/food chain. Scientists do not consider this to be a likely origin of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. This scenario's source animal could be either a direct or intermediary species as described above. Many investigations centered around the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, which had an early cluster of cases. While there have been food-borne outbreaks of human viruses in the past, and evidence of re-introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into China through imported frozen foods, investigations found no conclusive evidence of viral contamination in products at the Huanan Market.


text: A final scenario, assessed to be unlikely by most experts, but supported by a minority of experts, is known as the lab leak hypothesis. The theory considers that the possibility that the virus was introduced to humans due to an intentional or unintentional laboratory escape. This scenario would have involved laboratory staff becoming infected from contact with live bats (wild or captive), from contact with biological samples, or from contact with viruses being grown in vitro. There is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 existed in any laboratory prior to the pandemic. An original animal reservoir has not yet been confirmed, though several candidate species have been identified. Central to the idea of a Chinese leak is the misconception that it is distinctively suspicious that an outbreak should happen to occur in a city with a virology institute (the Wuhan Institute of Virology) nearby; most large Chinese cities have similar institutes. The idea of a leak there also gained support due to suspicions about the secrecy of the Chinese government's response and has been informed by racist undercurrents.


text: The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has performed research into bat coronaviruses since 2005, and identified the RaTG13 virus in 2013, which is the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2. WIV research interests have included investigations into the source of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and 2012 MERS outbreak, in collaboration with US researchers. The proximity of the laboratory to the Huanan seafood market has led some to speculate there may be a link between the two, and politicians, media personalities, and some scientists have called for further investigations into the matter. Experts have ruled out intentional manipulation of the virus (i.e. biological engineering) as a plausible origin, due to a lack of supporting evidence, and growing evidence in favor of a natural origin.


text: New York-based, National Institutes of Health–funded EcoHealth Alliance has been the subject of controversy and increased scrutiny due to its ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Under political pressure, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) withdrew funding to EcoHealth Alliance in July 2020.


text: A WHO-convened study published in March 2021 considered the possibility of a collected natural virus inadvertently infecting laboratory staff, assessing it to be "extremely unlikely". On 15 July 2021 WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom stated in a speech that there had been a "premature push" to discredit the idea of a lab leak. Later on in the same speech, he expanded, "I was a lab technician, an immunologist, and worked in the lab. And lab accidents happen." The WHO has planned a second phase of investigation that will include "audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions". However, China has rejected this plan stating "it is impossible for us to accept such an origin-tracing plan".


text: An even less likely lab-leak theory has been proposed by some in the Chinese government who have claimed that the virus came from a U.S. military laboratory. Chinese government demands to investigate the U.S. lab at Fort Detrick have been said to be intended to deflect attention from Wuhan.


text: The first investigation conducted in China was by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, responding to hospitals reporting cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology, resulting in the closure of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on 1 January 2020 for sanitation and disinfection. The market was originally suspected of being the source of the virus; however, the Chinese government and the WHO determined later that it was not.


text: In April 2020, China imposed restrictions on publishing academic research on the novel coronavirus. Investigations into the origin of the virus would receive extra scrutiny and must be approved by Central Government officials. The restrictions do not ban research or publication, including with non-Chinese researchers; Ian Lipkin, a US scientist, has been working with a team of Chinese researchers under the auspices of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a Chinese government agency, to investigate the origin of the virus. Lipkin has long-standing relationships with Chinese officials, including premier Li Keqiang, because of his contributions to rapid testing for SARS in 2003.


text: On 6 February 2020, the director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a meeting of "experts, world class geneticists, coronavirus experts, and evolutionary biologists", to "assess what data, information and samples are needed to address the unknowns, in order to understand the evolutionary origins of COVID-19 and more effectively respond to both the outbreak and any resulting information".


text: In April 2020, it was reported that the US intelligence community was investigating whether the virus came from an accidental leak from a Chinese lab. The hypothesis was one of several possibilities being pursued by the investigators. US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said the results of the investigation were "inconclusive". By the end of April 2020, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the US intelligence community believed the coronavirus was not man-made or genetically modified.


text: US officials criticised the "terms of reference" allowing Chinese scientists to do the first phase of preliminary research. On 15 January 2021, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that to assist the WHO investigative team's work and ensure a transparent, thorough investigation of COVID-19's origin, the US was sharing new information and urging the WHO to press the Chinese government to address three specific issues, including the illnesses of several researchers inside the WIV in autumn 2019 "with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses", the WIV's research on "RaTG13" and "gain of function", and the WIV's links to the People's Liberation Army. On 18 January, the US called on China to allow the WHO's expert team to interview "care givers, former patients and lab workers" in the city of Wuhan, drawing a rebuke from the Chinese government. Australia also called for the WHO team to have access to "relevant data, information and key locations".


text: A classified report from May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a US government national laboratory, concluded that the hypothesis that the virus leaked from the WIV "is plausible and deserves further investigation", although the report also notes that the virus could have developed naturally, echoing the consensus of the American intelligence community, and provides no "smoking gun" towards either hypothesis.


text: On 13 February 2021, the White House said it had "deep concerns" about both the way the WHO's findings were communicated and the process used to reach them. Mirroring concerns raised by the Trump administration, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that it was essential that the WHO-convened report be independent and "free from alteration by the Chinese government". On 14 April 2021, the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, along with other Biden administration officials, said that they had not ruled out the possibility of a laboratory accident as the origin of the COVID-19 virus.


text: On 26 May 2021, President Joe Biden directed the U.S. intelligence community to produce a report within 90 days on whether the COVID-19 virus originated from a human contact with an infected animal or from an accidental lab leak, stating his national security staff said there is insufficient evidence to determine either hypothesis to be more likely. On 26 August 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified summary of their findings, with the main point being that the report remained inconclusive as to the origin of the virus, with intelligence agencies divided on the question. The report also concluded that the virus was most likely not genetically engineered, and that China had no foreknowledge of the virus prior to the outbreak. The report concluded that a final determination of the origin was unlikely without cooperation from the Chinese government, saying their prior lack of transparency "reflect[ed] in part China's government's own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead, as well as its frustration that the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China." Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the US intelligence report was "unscientific and has no credibility".


text: On 23 May 2021, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that a previously undisclosed US intelligence report stated that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill enough in November 2019 to seek hospital care. The report did not specify what the illness was. Officials familiar with the intelligence differed as to the strength to which it corroborates the hypothesis that the virus responsible for COVID-19 was leaked from the WIV. The "WSJ" report notes that it is not unusual for people in China to go to the hospital with uncomplicated influenza or common cold symptoms.


text: Yuan Zhiming, director of the WIV's Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, responded in the "Global Times", a Chinese state media outlet, that the "claims are groundless". Marion Koopmans, a member of the WHO study team, described the number of flu-like illnesses at the WIV in 2019 as "completely normal". Workers at the WIV must provide yearly serum samples. WIV virologist Shi Zhengli said in 2020 that, based on an evaluation of those serum samples, all staff tested negative for COVID-19 antibodies.


text: The resurgence of the theory of a laboratory accident was fueled in part by the publication, in May 2021, of early emails between Anthony Fauci and scientists discussing the issue, before deliberate manipulation was ruled out as of March 2020.


text: On 14 July 2021, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held the first congressional hearing on the origins of the virus. Bill Foster, an Illinois Democrat who chaired the hearing, said the Chinese government's lack of transparency is not in itself evidence of a lab leak and cautioned that answers may not be known even after the administration produces its intelligence report. Expert witnesses Stanley Perlman and David Relman presented to the congressman different proposed explanations for the origins of the virus and how to conduct further investigations.


text: On 16 July 2021, CNN reported that Biden administration officials considered the lab leak theory "as credible" as the natural origins theory. In October 2022, an interim report of a Republican member of a US Senate committee concluded that a lab origin was most likely, but offered "little new evidence", according to "The New York Times".


text: The World Health Organization has declared that finding where SARS-CoV-2 came from is a priority and that it is "essential for understanding how the pandemic started." In May 2020, the World Health Assembly, which governs the World Health Organization (WHO), passed a motion calling for a "comprehensive, independent and impartial" study into the COVID-19 pandemic. A record 137 countries, including China, co-sponsored the motion, giving overwhelming international endorsement to the study. In mid 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) began negotiations with the government of China on conducting an official study into the origins of COVID-19.


text: In November 2020, the WHO published a two-phase study plan. The purpose of the first phase was to better understand how the virus "might have started circulating in Wuhan", and a second phase involves longer-term studies based on the findings of the first phase. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom said "We need to know the origin of this virus because it can help us to prevent future outbreaks," adding, "There is nothing to hide. We want to know the origin, and that's it." He also urged countries not to politicise the origin tracing process, saying that would only create barriers to learning the truth.


text: For the first phase, the WHO formed a team of ten researchers with expertise in virology, public health and animals to conduct a thorough study. One of the team's tasks was to retrospectively ascertain what wildlife was being sold in local wet markets in Wuhan. The WHO's phase one team arrived and quarantined in Wuhan, Hubei, China in January 2021.


text: Members of the team included Thea Fisher, John Watson, Marion Koopmans, Dominic Dwyer, Vladimir Dedkov, Hung Nguyen-Viet, Fabian Leendertz, Peter Daszak, Farag El Moubasher, and Ken Maeda. The team also included five WHO experts led by Peter Ben Embarek, two Food and Agriculture Organization representatives, and two representatives from the World Organisation for Animal Health.


text: The inclusion of Peter Daszak in the team stirred controversy. Daszak is the head of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies spillover events, and has been a longtime collaborator of over 15 years with Shi Zhengli, Wuhan Institute of Virology's director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. While Daszak is highly knowledgeable about Chinese laboratories and the emergence of diseases in the area, his close connection with the WIV was seen by some as a conflict of interest in the WHO's study. When a BBC News journalist asked about his relationship with the WIV, Daszak said, "We file our papers, it's all there for everyone to see."


text: The team was denied access to raw data, including the list of early patients, swabs, and blood samples. It was allowed only a few hours of supervised access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.


text: In February 2021, after conducting part of their study, the WHO stated that the likely origin of COVID-19 was a zoonotic event from a virus circulating in bats, likely through another animal carrier, and that the time of transmission to humans was likely towards the end of 2019.


text: The Chinese and the international experts who jointly carried out the WHO-convened study consider it "extremely unlikely" that COVID-19 leaked from a lab. No evidence of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was found by the WHO team, with team leader Peter Ben Embarek stating that it was "very unlikely" due to the safety protocols in place. During a "60 Minutes" interview with Lesley Stahl, Peter Daszak, another member of the WHO team, described the investigation process to be a series of questions and answers between the WHO team and the Wuhan lab staff. Stahl made the comment that the team was "just taking their word for it", to which Daszak replied, "Well, what else can we do? There's a limit to what you can do and we went right up to that limit. We asked them tough questions. They weren't vetted in advance. And the answers they gave, we found to be believable—correct and convincing."


text: The investigation also stated that transfer from animals to humans was unlikely to have occurred at the Huanan Seafood Market, since infections without a known epidemiological link were confirmed before the outbreak around the market. In an announcement that surprised some foreign experts, the joint investigation concluded that early transmission via the cold chain of frozen products was "possible."


text: In March 2021, the WHO published a written report with the results of the study. The joint team stated that there are four scenarios for introduction:


text: The report mentions that direct zoonotic transmission to humans has a precedent, as most current human coronaviruses originated in animals. Zoonotic transmission is also supported by the fact that RaTG13 binds to hACE2, although the fit is not optimal.


text: The investigative team noted the requirement for further studies, noting that these would "potentially increase knowledge and understanding globally."


text: WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom, who was not directly involved with the investigation, said he was ready to dispatch additional missions involving specialist experts and that further research was required. He said in a statement, "Some explanations may be more probable than others, but for now all possibilities remain on the table." He also said, "We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do." Tedros called on China to provide "more timely and comprehensive data sharing" as part of future investigations.


text: News outlets noted that, though it was unrealistic to expect quick and huge results from the report, it "offered few clear-cut conclusions regarding the start of the pandemic", "failed to audit the Chinese official position at some parts of the report", and was "biased according to critics". Other scientists praised how the report details the pathways that can shed light on the origin, if explored later.


text: After the publication of the report, politicians, talk show hosts, journalists, and some scientists advanced unsupported claims that SARS-CoV-2 may have come from the WIV. In the United States, calls to investigate a laboratory leak reached "fever pitch", fueling aggressive rhetoric resulting in antipathy towards people of Asian ancestry, and the bullying of scientists. The European Union, United States, and 13 other countries criticised the WHO-convened study, calling for transparency from China and access to the raw data and original samples. Chinese officials described these criticisms as an attempt to politicise the study. Scientists involved in the WHO report, including Liang Wannian, John Watson, and Peter Daszak, objected to the criticism, and said that the report was an example of the collaboration and dialogue required to successfully continue investigations into the matter.


text: In a letter published in "Science", a number of scientists, including Ralph Baric, argued that the accidental laboratory leak hypothesis had not been sufficiently investigated and remained possible, calling for greater clarity and additional data. Their letter was criticized by some virologists and public health experts, who said that a "hostile" and "divisive" focus on the WIV was unsupported by evidence, and would cause Chinese scientists and authorities to share less, rather than more data.


text: On 27 May 2021, Danish epidemiologist Tina Fischer spoke on the This Week in Virology podcast, advocating for a second phase of the study to audit blood samples for COVID-19 antibodies in China. WHO-convened study team member Marion Koopmans, on that same broadcast, advocated for WHO member states to make a decision on the second phase of the study, though she also cautioned that an investigatory audit of the laboratory itself may be inconclusive. In early July 2021, WHO emergency chief Michael Ryan said the final details of phase 2 were being worked out in negotiations between WHO and its member states, as the WHO works "by persuasion" and cannot compel any member state (including China) to cooperate.


text: In July 2021 China rejected WHO requests for greater transparency, cooperation, and access to data as part of Phase 2. On 16 July 2021, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian declared that China's position was that future investigations should be conducted elsewhere and should focus on cold chain transmission and the US military's labs. On 22 July 2021, the Chinese government held a press conference in which Zeng Yixin, Vice Health Minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), said that China would not participate in a second phase of the WHO's investigation, denouncing it as "shocking" and "arrogant". He elaborated "In some aspects, the WHO's plan for next phase of investigation of the coronavirus origin doesn't respect common sense, and it's against science. It's impossible for us to accept such a plan."


text: On 9 June 2022, the SAGO group, in development of its function of advisor to the WHO, published its first preliminary report. This report summarised existing findings and recommended that further studies be undertaken into possibly pathways of emergence.


text: In November 2020, an international task force led by Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, was formed as part of "The Lancet" COVID-19 Commission, backed by the medical journal "The Lancet". Daszak stated that the task force was formed to "conduct a thorough and rigorous investigation into the origins and early spread of SARS-CoV-2". The task force has twelve members with backgrounds in One Health, outbreak investigation, virology, lab biosecurity and disease ecology. The task force plans to analyse scientific findings and does not plan to visit China. In June 2021, "The Lancet" announced that Daszak had recused himself from the commission. On 25 September 2021, the task force work was folded after procedural concerns and a need to broaden its scope to examine transparency and government regulation of risky laboratory research.


text: In September 2022 the "Lancet" group published a wide-ranging report on the pandemic, including commentary on the virus origin overseen by the group's chairman, economist Jeffrey Sachs. The report suggested that the virus may have originated from an American laboratory, a notion long-promoted by Sachs, including on the podcast of conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Reacting to this, virologist Angela Rasmussen commented that this may have been "one of The Lancet's most shameful moments regarding its role as a steward and leader in communicating crucial findings about science and medicine". Virologist David Robertson said the invocation of US laboratory involvement was "wild speculation" and that "it's really disappointing to see such a potentially influential report contributing to further misinformation on such an important topic".


text: In June 2021, the NIH announced that a set of sequence data had been removed from the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) in June 2020. The removal was performed according to standard practice at the request of the investigators who owned the rights to the sequences, with the investigators' rationale that the sequences would be submitted to another database. The investigators subsequently published a paper in an academic journal the same month they were removed from the NIH database which described the sequences in detail and discussed their evolutionary relationship to other sequences, but did not include the raw data. Virologist David Robertson said that it was difficult to conclude it was a cover-up rather than the more likely explanation: a mundane deletion of data without malfeasance. The missing genetic sequence data was restored in a correction published 29 July 2021 after it was stated to be a copy-edit error.


text: In April 2020, Australian foreign minister Marise Payne and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison called for an independent international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. A few days later, German chancellor Angela Merkel also pressed China for transparency about the origin of the coronavirus, following similar concerns raised by the French president Emmanuel Macron. The UK also expressed support for an investigation, although both France and UK said the priority at the time was to first fight the virus. Some public health experts have also called for an independent examination of COVID-19's origins, "arguing WHO does not have the political clout to conduct such a forensic analysis".


text: In May 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Canada would "support the call by the United States and others to better understand the origins of COVID-19." In June 2021, at the G7 summit in Cornwall, the attending leaders issued a joint statement calling for a new investigation, citing China's refusal to cooperate with certain aspects of the original WHO-convened study. This resistance to international pressure was one of the key findings of a "Wall Street Journal" investigation into the pandemic origin.


text: The divisive nature of the debate has led scientists to call for less political pressure on the topic. Public health analysts have remarked that the debate over the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is fueling unnecessary confrontation, resulting in bullying and harassment of scientists, and is deepening existing geopolitical tensions and hindering collaboration at a time where such mutual cooperation is required, both to deal with the current pandemic and in preparation for future such outbreaks. This comes in the face of scientists having predicted such events for decades: according to Katie Woolaston, researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, "The environmental drivers of pandemics are not being widely discussed". The debate comes at a moment of difficult global relations with Chinese authorities. Researchers have noted that the politicisation of the debate is making the process more difficult, and that words are often twisted to become "fodder for conspiracy theories."


text: A letter published in "The Lancet" in July 2021 remarked that the atmosphere of speculation surrounding the issue was of no help in making an objective assessment of the situation. In response to this letter, in a communication published in the same journal, a small group of researchers opposed the idea that scientists should promote unity and called for openness to alternative hypotheses. Despite the unlikelihood of the event, and although definitive answers are likely to take years of research, biosecurity experts have called for a review of global biosecurity policies, citing known gaps in international standards for biosafety. The situation has also reignited a debate over gain-of-function research, although the intense political rhetoric surrounding the issue has threatened to sideline serious inquiry over policy in this domain.


title: Banjara

text: The Banjara (also known as ,Vanzara,Lambadi,Gour Rajput,Labana) are a historically nomadic trading caste who may have origins in the Mewar region of what is now Rajasthan.


title: Banjara

text: The Banjaras usually refer to themselves as "Gor" and outsiders as "Kor" but this usage does not extend outside their own community. A related usage is "Gor Mati" or "Gormati", meaning "Own People". Motiraj Rathod believes that the community became known as "banjara" from around the fourteenth century AD and but previously had some association with the "Laman", who claim a 3000-year history.


title: Banjara

text: Irfan Habib believes the origin of "banjara" to lie in the Sanskrit word variously rendered as "vanij", "vanik" and "banik", as does the name of the Bania caste, which historically was India's "pre-eminent" trading community. However, According to B. G. Halbar, the word "Banjara" is derived from the Sanskrit word "vana chara".


title: Banjara

text: Despite the community adopting a multitude of languages, "Banjara" is used throughout India, although in Karnataka the name is altered to "Banijagaru". A survey conducted in 1968 by the All India Banjara Seva Sangh, a caste association, recorded 27 synonyms and 17 sub-groups. Recorded groups include Charan, Dharia, Mathuria, Multani (salt), which was a principal product that they transported across the country.


title: Banjara

text: The Banjara community not having constitutional recognization as tribes community. As such the Gor Banjara is one of the historic tribes ethnically identified by isolation, their own language, culture and traditions, festivals, cuisine, dance and music. This Banjara community significantly holds such an enigmatic culture and hospitality and contrasting patriarchal and matriarchal society. It is a bramhanical and Marwadi related culture and popular community in India, which is also known by different names in various parts of the country namely, ‘Gor, Gour Banjara, Laman, Lambani, Lambadi, Gour Rajput, Nayak, Baldiya, and Gouriya’. They are mainly distributed in Maharastra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal States and living in all the other States except the North-Eastern States and Union Territories. Gor Banjaras speak their distinct language known as ‘banjara’ which is also called as 'Gour Boli' , ‘Lamani’ or ‘Lambadi’ or ‘Gormati’ or ‘Banjari’. They have their oral literature and traditions, but do not have any written literature because of not having script for their language. As their history and traditions are not in written form, it has become difficult for historians and social scientists to chronicle their past. It is said that even their subsequent history up to the Aryan migration is shrouded in obscurity, as not much was discussed about them in the books of history and culture and no significant evidences were traced about them though they are survivals from the later prehistoric period.


title: Banjara

text: According to author J. J. Roy Burman, Banjaras have settled across Rajasthan and other parts of India. Together with the Bhopa, Domba and Kalbelia, they are sometimes called the "Gypsies of India". Professor D. B. Naik says that, "There are so many cultural similarities in the Roma Gypsies and the Banjara Lambanis".


title: Banjara

text: Author B. G. Halbar says that, Most of nomadic communities believe that they are descended from Rajput ancestry. All these nomadic tribal groups who claim Rajput ancestry says that during the time of Mughal domination they were retreated to the forests and vowed to return only when the foreign influence had gone. B. G. Halbar says they appear to be of mixed ethnicity, possibly originating in north-central India. However, Habib notes that their constituent groups may not in fact share a common origin, with the theories that suggest otherwise reflecting the systemic bias of nineteenth-century British ethnographers who were keen to create simple classifications. Laxman Satya notes that "Their status as Banjaras was circumscribed by the colonial state disregarding the rich diversity that existed among various groups".


title: Banjara

text: Although not referred to as "Banjara" until the sixteenth century, Habib believes that the royal court chroniclers Ziauddin Barani and Shaikh Nasiruddin documented them operating in the Delhi Sultanate some centuries earlier, around the time of the rule of Alauddin Khalji. Halbar dates things earlier, suggesting that Dandin, a Sanskrit writer who lived in the sixth century, refers to them but, again, not by name.


title: Banjara

text: Banjaras were historically pastoralists, traders , expert breeders and transporters of goods on the inland regions of India, for which they used boats, carts, camels, oxen, donkeys and sometimes the relatively scarce horse, hence controlling a large section of trade and economy. The mode of transport depended upon the terrain; for example, camels and donkeys were better suited to the highlands which carts could not negotiate, whilst oxen were able to progress better through wet lowland areas. Their prowess in negotiating thick forests was particularly prized. They often travelled in groups for protection, this "tanda" being led by an elected headman variously described as a "muqaddam", "nayak" or "naik". Such "tandas" usually comprised carriage of one specific product and thus were essentially a combined trade operation. They could be huge assemblies, some being recorded as comprising 190,000 beasts, and they also serviced the needs of armies, whose movements naturally followed the same trade and caravan routes. The Duke of Wellington used them for that purpose in his campaign against the Maratha Confederacy around the late 1790s and Jahangir, a Mughal emperor who reigned in the early seventeenth century, described them as


title: Banjara

text: Some Banjara subgroups engaged in trading specific goods but most traded in anything that might make them money - the range was vast, encompassing plains produce such as oilseed, sugarcane, opium, fruits and flowers, forest products (for example, gums, chironji, mhowa, berries, honey) and items from the hills, including tobacco and grass. Some traded in specific goods, such as the Labana subgroup (salt), the Multani (grain) and the Mukeri (wood and timber). One common Banjara practice in Berar before the British colonial period was the movement of cotton out of the region and then a return journey with groceries, salt, spices and similar consumptibles into the region. In that area, the Deccan Plateau and the Central Provinces, the Banjaras had a monopoly on the movement of salt prior to the arrival of the East India Company. More generally, they also traded in cattle, moving the beasts around the country's bazaars, and they rented out their carts.Although some older sources have suggested that they did not use credit, Habib's analysis of historic sources suggests that they did and that some were reliant on it.


title: Banjara

text: The peripatetic nature of Banjara life significantly affected their societal behaviours. Satya notes that it


title: Banjara

text: Movement of goods around the country meant that the Banjaras had to be, and were, trusted by merchants, moneylenders and traders. Any disruption caused by the grazing of their livestock along the trade routes was tolerated because the same beasts provided manure to fertilise the land. However, many Europeans historically thought the Banjaras to be similar to Gypsies, although this was unjustified as there were significant differences. Habib notes that "Superstitions of all kinds, including suspected witch killings and sacrifices, reinforced the Gypsy image of the class".


title: Banjara

text: In 19th century, and despite some British officials such as Thurston praising their trustworthiness as carriers, the British colonial authorities brought the community under the purview of Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. Edward Balfour noted in his "On the migratory tribes of natives in Central India" (1843) that the reduction in the number of wars by that time had contributed to their economic deprivation, whilst East India Company encroachment on monopolies such as salt also affected them. Many also lost their work as carriers due to the arrival of the railways and improved roads. Some tried to work the forests for wood and produce, some settled to be farmers, and others turned to crime. Earlier than this there had been British people who considered them to be undesirable because of their role in passing messages and weapons to armies as they went about their travels, and there was also a general trend among the British to treat criminality as something that was normal among communities without fixed abode. They were sometimes associated by the British with Thugee and by the 1830s had gained some notoriety for committing crimes such as roadside robbery, cattle lifting, and theft of grain or other property. The women took a leading role in such criminality, led by the headman of the gang, and if someone was convicted then the other members of the gang would take care of their families. Poor, mostly illiterate and unskilled, the Banjaras were also resistant to improvement through education, which the British felt left no recourse other than tight control through policing. Their reputation for misdeeds persisted into the early twentieth century.


title: Banjara

text: The status of the Banjaras as a designated criminal tribe continued until after the independence of India, when the repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act caused them to be classified as one of the Denotified Tribes.


title: Banjara

text: Gour Banjaras have a unique cultural life and practices that differentiate them from others. They also have their own language, food habits, body tattooing, dress and ornaments, art and dance and festivals and ceremonies, which have formed their culture. Gor Banjara culture includes their language, costume, marriage customs, festivities, folk and performing arts and many other capabilities acquired by them. Their culture with its language and professions seems distinct and different from other tribes. They have their own language called ‘Banjara’,' Brinjari' or ‘Gormati’ and a different and distinct culture of their own.


title: Banjara

text: Some of the southern Indian banjaaras practise a tradition of celebrating a special pooja called "GHAR GHAR ER POJA" in which banjaras worship Tuljabhavani goddess and Cheetala Yaadi Goddess and perform animal sacrifice and worship the gods whole night and invite all the relatives for the feast .


title: Banjara

text: Banjaras speak Gour Boli; also called Lambadi, Banjary it belongs to the Indo-Aryan group of languages. As Lambadi has no script, it is either written in Devanagari script or in the script of the local language such as Telugu or Kannada. Many Banjaras today are bilingual or multilingual, adopting the predominant language of their surroundings, but those that continue to live in areas of dense Banjara population persist with their traditional language.


title: Banjara

text: Gor Banjaras have their own mother tongue called ‘Gorboli’,Banjary and it is spoken by people living across India. According to their names their language is also known by various names such as, Lamani, Lambadi, Lambani, Brinjari ,Gourmati,Banjara, Lubhani and variants. Regional dialects are divided between the Banjaras of MH (written in Marathi and Hindi by using Devanagari script), KK (written in the Kannada script), AP and TS (written in the Telugu script). They are bilingual and speak in Hindi or Marathi or Kannada or Telugu along with their mother tongue ‘Gorboli’, but there is an influence of regional languages on their ‘Banjars’ language. As such the actual number of ‘Gorboli’ speakers is not known since the census is not being enumerated based on language for the last many years. The state wise census of Banjaras is also not available as they were listed under different categories in various states of India, though they are living across India. However, based on the unofficial sources, they have an estimated population of more than (4) Crore. ‘Gorboli’ has no script, but they have abundant oral literature, which is also not recorded much, and they are left with no written literature for the last many centuries. However, Banjaras are upkeeping their language and oral traditions by transferring them orally from one generation to next generation. On the other hand, their language and literature are in the danger of depletion due to modernization and influence of outer societies around them. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study the status of Banjaras ‘Banjara’ language and explore the possibilities of adopting a script and protecting the linguistic identity of Banjaras.


title: Banjara

text: Banjara art includes performance arts such as dance and music as well as folk and plastic arts such as rangoli, textile embroidery, tattooing and painting. Banjara embroidery and tattooing are especially prized and also form a significant aspect of the Banjara identity. Lambani women specialise in "lepo" embroidery, which involves stitching pieces of mirror, decorative beads and coins onto clothes. Sandur Lambani embroidery is a type of textile embroidery unique to the tribe in Sanduru, Bellary district, Karnataka. It has obtained a GI tag.


title: Banjara

text: Banjara people celebrate the festival of Teej during Shravana (the month of August). In this festival young unmarried Banjara girls pray for a good groom. They sow seeds in bamboo bowls and water it three times a day for nine days and if the sprouts grow "thick and high" it is considered a good omen. During Teej the seedling-baskets are kept in the middle and girls sing and dance around them.


title: Banjara

text: Fire dance , 'Ghumar' dance and Chari dance are the traditional dance forms of the Banjaras. Banjaras have a sister community of singers known as Dadhis or Gajugonia. They are traditionally travelled from village to village singing songs to the accompaniment of sarangi.


title: Banjara

text: All of the Banjara people profess faith in Hinduism and follow Hindu culture. They are known to worship deities such as Balaji, Goddess Jagadamba Devi, Goddess Bhavani, Renuka Mata of Mahur and Hanuman. They also hold Guru Nanak in great respect. However, the Banjaras have been "ambiguous" with regard to religion and were "tolerant and syncretic", according to Satya. He notes, like Habib, that some banjaras those who had settled in the Wun district of Berar must have annoyed local Brahmins by preferring to use the services of their own priests rather than of that priestly caste. Further, they were associated with the Mahanubhava sect which led to a belief in Krishna and "a casual attitude towards cohabitation".


title: Banjara

text: Sevalal or Sevabhaya is the most important saint of the Banjaras. According to their accounts, he was born on 15 February 1739 and died on 4 December 1806. A cattle merchant by profession he is said to have been a man of exemplary truthfulness, a great musician, a courageous warrior, a rationalist who fought against superstition and a devotee of the goddess Jagadamba. The colonial British administrators also quote his stories but they place him in the 19th century and identify his original name as Siva Rathor.


title: Banjara

text: Although the Banjaras were traditionally a migratory people, they did historically mostly settle each year in fixed village accommodation during the monsoon months of June - August and their elderly people are usually permanently Although the introduction of modern modes of transport largely made the community redundant from their traditional occupation, forcing them into economic distress from which they sought relief by turning to agriculture and other unskilled labour, V. Sarveswara Naik notes that as recently as 1996 many still retain a nomadic lifestyle on a seasonal basis to supplement their income. They also retain common traits among their exogamous clans, including strict tribal endogamy, use of the Gor-Boli language, referencing themselves as "Gor", settling in "tanda" groups, using tribal councils called "Gor panchayats" to resolve disputes and, in the case of the women, dressing in their traditional clothing. However, the men have largely given up their traditional attire of a white "dhoti" (shirt) and a red turban, along with the wearing of ear-rings, finger rings and "kanadoro" (silver strings worn around the waist).


title: Banjara

text: Aside from retaining their practice of endogamy, V. Sarveswara Naik records of Banjara customs in 1990s Andhra Pradesh that they follow forms of marriage that include monogamy, serial monogamy and bigamy, whilst polygamy is rare but accepted. Marriages are permitted between cousins and between uncles and nieces, widows are allowed to remarry and divorce is accepted provided it has the consent of the "Gor panchayat". The marriages are usually between people who live fairly close together, within the same taluk or, occasionally, district; the exception to this is the relatively rare case when the man has some education, in which case it is becoming more common to see them making arrangements that involve a longer distance.