Short answers, pulled from the story.
Tuberculosis was historically known as consumption, a term derived from the Latin word for to take up from under, describing how the illness seemed to consume the life from its victims. It was also called the white death, a name that evokes the pale, wasting appearance of those it consumed. In the 1800s, this disease was responsible for an estimated quarter of all deaths in Europe.
Robert Koch identified and described the bacillus causing tuberculosis, M. tuberculosis, on the 24th of March 1882. This discovery was for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905. World Tuberculosis Day is marked on the 24th of March each year, the anniversary of Koch's original scientific announcement.
The true turning point in the battle against tuberculosis arrived in 1946 with the development of the antibiotic streptomycin, which made effective treatment and cure of TB a reality. Prior to the introduction of this medication, the only treatment was surgical intervention, including the pneumothorax technique, which involved collapsing an infected lung to rest it and to allow tuberculous lesions to heal.
The majority of individuals with TB infection show no symptoms, a state known as inactive or latent tuberculosis, which is not contagious but can lie dormant for decades. Without treatment, an estimated 5% to 15% of cases will progress into active TB during the person's lifetime, often many years after the initial infection.
Approximately 87% of new TB cases occur in the 30 high TB burden countries, with more than two-thirds of the global burden occurring in Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines. India alone is estimated to have 40% of its population carry tuberculosis infection, attributed to widespread poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor hygiene.