Discovery of Mycobacterium TB [M.tb]

• Egyptian mummies, dating back to 2400 BC, reveal skeletal deformities typical of tuberculosis; characteristic of Pott's lesion.
• In Ancient Greece, TB was called Phthisis. Hippocrates described Phthisis as a fatal disease and accurately defined its symptoms and characteristic tubercular lung lesions.
• In 1700s, TB was called “the white plague” due to the paleness of the affected patients.
• In 1793, the Scottish pathologist, Matthew Baille named the caseous necrosis, "cheese-like", phthisic abscesses as "tubercles".
• In 1819, a French physician, Theophile Laennec, identified the presence of consolidation, pleurisy and pulmonary cavitation as signs of pulmonary or extrapulmonary TB. He described appearance of tubercles in the lungs, in their "miliary" ("millet seed-like") form, their progressing to larger tubercles containing "cheese-like" ("caseous") material, their breakdown into pus, and eventually forming cavities and empyema.
• In 1800s, TB was commonly called “consumption”.
• In 1834, Johann Schönlein coined the term “tuberculosis”.
• In 1865, a French doctor, Jean-Antoine Villemin, demonstrated that tuberculosis was a transmissible disease by inoculating a rabbit with "a small amount of purulent liquid from a tuberculous cavity", removed at autopsy from an individual died of TB. On autopsy, the rabbit showed extensive TB disease.

The two innovations - a new methylene blue staining procedure and use of solidified, serum-based medium - allowed Dr. Robert Koch, a German doctor, to observe and cultivate the new organism from tuberculous lesions.

Dr. Koch further reproduced the disease by inoculating the bacillus into laboratory animals.

• On March 24, 1882, Dr. Robert Koch announced discovery of tuberculosis bacilli.

The tuberculosis agent was named as Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1883.

Today, based on the names for TB we can tell:

• Where TB is located (pulmonary, extrapulmonary)
• How to treat it (drug-susceptible, drug-resistant, multidrug resistant  and extensively drug-resistant).

Resources

Historical Perspectives Centennial: Koch's Discovery of the Tubercle Bacillus

The history of tuberculosis: from the first historical records to the isolation of Koch's bacillus

Steps towards the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Robert Koch, 1882

Assessment