Modern theory of tuberculosis: culturomic analysis of its historical origin in Europe and North America
OBJECTIVE: To analyze, using culturomic methods, the history of our modern understanding of TB as a unitary disease.
METHODS: A culturomic analysis of millions of digitized texts was undertaken to quantify 200-year trends in usage of the modern term tuberculosis and pre-modern terms consumptive, phthisis, and scrofula, and to correlate these trends with significant historical events.
RESULTS: Our understanding of TB originated with Laënnec in Paris, who proposed that the seemingly disparate wasting conditions phthisis, scrofula, and consumption were each related to the same post-mortem anatomical sign: the tubercle. The term tuberculosis was coined by Schonlein in 1829, but the term's usage remained uncommon until Villemin's 1865 discovery that TB was a communicable disease, Koch's 1882 discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Pasteur's 1884 discovery of a vaccine against another communicable disease, smallpox.
CONCLUSION: Our modern understanding of TB as a unitary disease was embraced slowly. Acceptance required new terminology describing the idea, scientific confirmation that TB is an infectious disease, and evidence suggesting that it might be prevented. An innovative idea is not enough to induce widespread acceptance. The study illustrates how culturomic methods can be used to study the adoption and diffusion of an innovation, in this case the modern theory of TB.
Keywords: diffusion of innovations; history of TB; theory of TB
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Medicine and Department of Policy and Management, Richard M Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University 2: Richard M Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University 3: Max Kade German-American Center, School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 4: World Bank Group, Brasilia, DF, Brazil 5:
Publication date: 01 November 2018
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