To: backhoe
Yep, the "White Death" was a real killer back in the day. For some reason the Celts seem particularly susceptible. I had many cousins (several times removed - back in the 1880s and 90s) who had it and died from it or some other form like scrofula (TB of the lymph nodes) or TB of the spine. Dr. Sam Johnson had scrofula (a/k/a 'the King's evil') and was one of the last people to be 'touched for the Evil' by Queen Anne. She was the last British monarch to perform this ceremony.
A very unpleasant disease, quite unlike the portrayals in La Boheme, etc.
22 posted on
11/08/2007 7:36:18 AM PST by
AnAmericanMother
((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))
To: AnAmericanMother
My grandmother called it “galloping consumption”
26 posted on
11/08/2007 8:10:29 AM PST by
jesseam
(Been there and done that!)
To: AnAmericanMother
My grandmother called it “galloping consumption”
27 posted on
11/08/2007 8:10:30 AM PST by
jesseam
(Been there and done that!)
To: AnAmericanMother
My Dad caught TB right after he got out of college-circa 1912-- and it just about killed him before he shook it off.
One of the strange things he noticed ( besides wasting from 165 pounds to about 120 ) was that while his strength stayed intact, his endurance went down to nearly nothing.
In those days, it was a "you kill it, or it kills you" proposition.
28 posted on
11/08/2007 8:12:50 AM PST by
backhoe
(Just a Merry-Hearted Keyboard PirateBoy, plunderin’ his way across the WWW…)
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