Millions of people have fallen victim to the tuberculosis bacteria. However, despite all the pain, suffering, and death attributed to TB, poets and authors of the 19th century considered it to be a very erotic and beautiful disease. Women dying of consumption were pale, gaunt, weak, and had wonderfully flushed cheeks - all ideals of feminine beauty at the time. The bacilli infect the body - primarily the lungs, but sometimes the bacilli is spread through the bloodstream to various other parts of the body.
Necrosis is extensive and cavitation is prominent.
Pasteurization put an end to this method of transmission. Symptoms of TB disease include a cough that will not go away, feeling tired all the time, weight loss, a loss of appetite, fever, coughing up blood, and night sweats. Throughout history tuberculosis has been one of the most written about and deadly of contagions. Although much conjecture and theorizing was done, no real steps were made in the fight against the tuberculosis bacterium until the advent of sanitariums in the mid 1800's. These were isolated care homes where victims of TB were subjected to constant rest and fresh mountain air, in an effort to cure them of their disease.