Tuberculosis
- I didn’t know that tuberculosis can produce fusion of vertebrae and deformation of the spine - it has a much wider impact than I previously thought.
- Pretty crazy that you can see evidence for TB in Egyptian mummies, in two ways - first, that the disease has been around for that long, and second, that the combination of archaeology and biology can detect its presence.
- Similar to a lot of the diseases that we’ve seen in this class, the rise of the present wave of TB can be attributed in part due to zoonotic influences (“town “dairies”). Seems like that’s universally one of the major reasons why a large outbreak/pandemic happens.
- Wow, it’s pretty disturbing how TB was fetishized in the 19th century. I wonder if there’s any other comparisons to modern-day diseases. Probably not to the same extent, because we have a much better understanding of medicine now than we did then.
- TB being regarded as a “Jewish disease” in the urban centers of New York and Boston is eerily reminiscent of how COVID-19 has been called the “Chinese plague” by President Trump. I wonder why this casual racism often seems to go hand-in-hand with major pandemics.
- It’s absolutely crazy that a TB infection could occur if as few as 5 bacteria reach the alveoli of the lung. 5 bacteria! No wonder a quarter of the world’s population is said to have the disease.
- It’s interesting how the human body’s immune response (macrophages) are the ones that in some sense making the infection much worse, by transporing the bacilli to other parts of the body by the lymph channels.
- TB can literally liquefy your lungs - yikes.
uid: 202009172206 tags: #mcb55