By Steve Templeton at Brownstone dot org.

The wasting disease known as tuberculosis, or TB, is as old as human history. Caused by the waxy bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the modern era, killing around 1.5 million people per year worldwide. TB infection is usually initiated when an individual inhales bacteria made airborne through the coughing or sneezing of other infected individuals.

The bacteria settle deep into the lungs where they begin a latent infection that, if left untreated, can last a lifetime.

The problem for some people with latent TB is that they do not remain immune-competent and can't keep latent TB contained. Some individuals develop immune deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, or cancer that render them susceptible to reactivation of bacterial growth. Individuals with AIDS, for example, have lost the helper T cells that are needed to help TB-containing macrophages, and so the HIV/AIDS pandemic was associated with a resurgence in TB worldwide.

Modern medicine has increased the number of individuals on immunosuppressive drugs or those able to survive with immune deficiencies, increasing the number of people susceptible to more severe forms of TB. Because of its high prevalence, it's safe to say that TB will likely never be eradicated.

After an initial infection that could be mistaken for a common cold, progressive TB can result in chronic destruction of lungs, where patients often cough up blood while bacteria spreads to other parts of the body. Chronic TB infections differ within individuals in their level of severity and progression, with disease progressing over a period of a single year to decades. Some develop periodic fevers, extreme fatigue, and excessive production of phlegm and leaking of blood in the lungs.

The final stage results in individuals developing a pallid color and an emaciated physique with a loss of muscle tone, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes. This appearance describes the typical form of late-stage "consumption" as the disease was called in the 18th and 19th centuries, since the disease appeared to consume the body slowly until the skeletal-like victim expired.

Much of the popular mythology of vampires can be traced to beliefs about TB. People with progressive TB often appeared pale and gaunt, with reddish eyes and blood on their lips. Consumptives often exhibited a sensitivity to light, forcing them to stay inside during the day, venturing out only at night. Some thought that blood on their lips wasn't just suggestive of a loss of blood, but also a thirst for it, giving them an overwhelming urge to bite others.

During one such outbreak of TB-related vampire hysteria in Rhode Island in March of 1892, villagers dug up bodies of three suspected vampires, a mother and her two daughters who had died of TB. Participants observed that one of the daughters looked suspiciously well-preserved despite being entombed for several months, with evidence that her hair and nails had grown, and her blood not fully coagulated.

A local doctor tried to reason with the mob, explaining that the previous cold winter had likely preserved the young woman's body. Yet the crowd believed this was indisputable proof of her undead status, resulting in the removal of her heart and burning of it on a rock, thus 'killing' the vampire that had caused all of their trouble once and for all. Perhaps coincident to this story, Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel Dracula was published in 1897.

Not everyone associated consumption with supernatural beings. Before Robert Koch identified TB as an infectious disease in 1882, it was thought by some to be a spontaneous, predestined disease, an act of fate, one inflamed by emotional trauma and passions, including those of the sexual nature. For the cosmopolitan set, there was no stigma associated with TB.

Instead, consumption was celebrated as a sign of creative genius and aesthetic gentility, since many famous artists, author...