Tuberculosis

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Other names for TB

In the past, tuberculosis was called consumption, because it seemed to consume people from within, with a bloody cough, fever, pallor, and long relentless wasting.

Other names included phthisis (Greek for consumption) and phthisis pulmonalis; scrofula (in adults), affecting the lymphatic system and resulting in swollen neck glands; tabes mesenterica, TB of the abdomen and lupus vulgaris, TB of the skin; wasting disease; white plague, because sufferers appear markedly pale; king's evil, because it was believed that a king's touch would heal scrofula; and Pott's disease, or gibbus of the spine and joints.

Miliary tuberculosis � now commonly known as disseminated TB� occurs when the infection invades the circulatory system resulting in lesions which have the appearance of millet seeds on X-ray.

Atypical TB