What does Consumption Mean?

Consumption is tuberculosis. This infectious disease, which was also called the “white plague” or “pale dying,” resembled an epidemic in its devastating spread. Since the exact names for diseases were not known in the vernacular in earlier times, people simply described certain typical characteristics. The naming “consumption” can be attributed to an essential symptom: the serious loss of weight.

Historical background

Documents from China and India dating back as far as 3,000 years bear witness to the disease. Then, in ancient times, it was the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen who first addressed consumption, observing and documenting it.

On March 24, 1882, Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tubercle bacillus (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) at a meeting of the Berlin Physiological Society.

Clinical picture of consumption

The pathogens, rod-shaped bacteria, are absorbed through the respiratory tract and then settle in the lungs or, in the later course, can also affect the entire organism. Affected individuals complain of the following symptoms, among others:

  • Fatigue
  • Loss of appetite
  • Sweating at night
  • Cough
  • “hemoptysis”

This is called “open pulmonary tuberculosis“, which is highly contagious and requires urgent medical treatment if the bacteria are released into the environment, for example by coughing. If this is not the case, it is a “closed tuberculosis”, which also requires treatment.

Consumption: Current status

Worldwide, about one-third of people are infected with tuberculosis, although this causes disease in only a few. About 10.4 million people become newly infected each year.

Although there are now very effective drugs, about 1.8 million people still die each year as a result of the disease.