Tuberculosis: An Overview
ABSTRACT
Tuberculosis is a disease that usually attacks the lungs, but has been known to attack the
brain, spine, or kidneys. The tuberculosis bacteria are spread through droplets produced
from someone sneezing, coughing, or even speaking. Not everyone that has Tuberculosis
knows that they have it since it can lay dormant for a very long time showing no symptoms
of sickness, and this is normally labeled tuberculosis infection. One reason that it can lay
dormant is because the immune system works to fight off the infection the same way it
does for all other illnesses, and cannot be spread to other people. If symptoms do occur,
and it is not treated Tuberculosis disease can be fatal. Symptoms of active tuberculosis
disease are chest pain, bad cough, weakness, fatigue, coughing blood. Diagnosis and a
stringent treatment plan can produce positive results.
Introduction
Tuberculosis is thought to have been present in humans for thousands of years, with
skeletal remains of ancestors showing remnants of the disease. In the 17th century
pathological and anatomical characterization of tuberculosis began to surface. “In 1679,
Sylvius wrote his Opera Medica, in which he was the first to identify actual tubercles as a
consistent and characteristic change in the lungs and other areas of consumptive patients”
(Schoenstadt, 2006). Due to the variety of its symptoms, TB was not identified as a unified
disease until the 1820s, and was not named tuberculosis until 1839 by J.L. Schonlein
(Schoenstadt, 2006).
Tuberculosis is a disease that can affect the lungs or different parts of the body.
Tuberculosis can affect the brain, spine, and kidneys as well. Tuberculosis bacteria can
enter the body by way of droplet, meaning that it can be spread through coughing,
laughing, singing, speaking, or sneezing. It seems that it is spread through family members
and friends more often, because of the time spent with one another. Tuberculosis is labeled
two different ways, latent tuberculosis and tuberculosis disease. The purpose of this paper
is to present an overview of symptoms, testing, and treatment of tuberculosis Symptoms
A person can have latent tuberculosis and never become sick. Latent means that a patient
can have the tuberculosis bacteria, but their immune system is strong enough to fight it. If
the Tuberculosis is latent the patient will not have any side effects. “Many people who
have latent TB infection never develop TB disease. In these people, the TB bacteria remain
inactive for a lifetime without causing disease” (CDC, 2016). The absence of symptoms
