Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, child death, and transgender discrimination.

Diagnostics for TB were improved with the introduction of the chest X-ray as an early detection tool, a method pioneered by Dr. Alan Hart in the early 20th century. Hart was a transgender man who constantly relocated to flee the anti-trans bias of his colleagues. His contributions to TB diagnostics remain invaluable today, especially in the detection of TB in rural communities.

Prevention likewise saw improvement through the emergence of a vaccine that inoculated people against TB. The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine was developed from samples of bovine TB in the 1920s and remains the only effective vaccine for TB. Although it does not eliminate the possibility of infection wholesale, it reduces the severity of illness among children.

By the 1940s, recovery was still unlikely for most active TB patients. Several researchers, however, provided insight into the inhibition of M. tuberculosis growth, which led to the development of streptomycin. These were bolstered with the repurposing of existing drugs, isoniazid and pyrazinamide, to combat M. tuberculosis. The combination of all three drugs formed the RIPE protocol, the first drug regimen for treating and curing TB, which remains widely used today.