Contagious Killer.

Tuberculosis, also known as consumption and "the Great White Plague," was a thoroughly democratic disease. The poor were especially susceptible, but the rich and famous could not escape its ravages. Tuberculosis is a highly contagious, bacteriaborne illness. Its victims inhale a droplet of liquid or speck of dust bearing a few virulent tubercle bacilli. When these organisms succeed in entering one of the tiny air sacs in the lung, they are in an ideal breeding ground. Within a few weeks the tubercle bacilli spread, first to the lymph nodes and then into the bloodstream and throughout the body. Most of the time the body's white blood cells can fight off the infection, but in 10 to 15 percent of the cases the disease gradually begins to dissolve the lung tissue, and symptoms such as coughing begin to occur. The severely infected cough...