TB today

In the Wohl reading, in addition to the emergence of techniques to control cholera, he discusses the ways that people brought down the number of tuberculosis cases. He mentions such simple changes as improved housing and more nutritious diet, which certainly did a fair part in improving the living conditions in general as well as with regards to TB. The developments were discussed almost as a side note and I found the tone of the writing to be nearly dismissive. Yet, just because food and housing which is good enough to evade TB may have been discovered over a hundred years ago and seem to be a simple thing to do, it has yet to become standard practice in many places around the world. Despite our ability to consider TB in the developed world as a nineteenth century problem, and one which was fairly straightforward (if not exactly simple) to resolve, the disease is still a major problem in many parts of the world. Wohl’s tone did not convey that not only are these still problems faced today, but they still have the same solutions as they did then. Although TB cannot be cured by better living conditions, it can be avoided through them. Still this has not happened in many parts of the world. The lack of these basic things is aggravated by the sometime-assumption that the disease is something of the past. Such thinking will only lead to a continued ignorance of the problem. While the changes that must be made to avoid TB are not simple, they are clear and, importantly, relevant today.