Episode 9 Tuberculosis: A Slow Burn

Today, we’re taking a page straight out of Dickens and talking about tuberculosis- a disease as rich in history as it is in bloody sputum. We’ll travel the path of an individual Mycobacterium tuberculosis as it makes it way down the respiratory tract of its victim and waits patiently, hidden and untouchable. We’ll learn why Nicole Kidman’s skinny physique was so en vogue in Moulin Rouge, talk about ‘The Royal Touch’, which isn’t quite as creepy as it sounds, cover enough of Koch’s postulates that you can give yourself an honorary microbiology degree, and oh so much more.

Books

Articles

Murphy, Jim, and Alison Blank. Invincible microbe: Tuberculosis and the never-ending search for a cure. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

Knechel, Nancy A. “Tuberculosis: pathophysiology, clinical features, and diagnosis.” Critical care nurse 29.2 (2009): 34-43.

Dormandy, Thomas. “The white death: a history of tuberculosis.” (1999).

World Health Organisation. “Global tuberculosis report 2017.” (2017).

Goetz, Thomas. The remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the quest to cure tuberculosis. Gotham, 2014.

 
MacDonald, Betty. “The Plague and I.” (1948): 36. 

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