What is tuberculosis.

About what TB is, humanity knew before Christ. In the II millennium BC, during the reign of Hammurabi in Babylon, a divorce was permitted with women who were consumed with tuberculosis.

In due time Hippocrates described in detail the main signs of pulmonary tuberculosis. Unfortunately, Hippocrates indicated the root cause of this disease incorrectly, since he believed that tuberculosis is a hereditary disease that arises from the excessive formation of mucus in the human body. He also dealt with the problem of the emergence of tuberculosis Avicenna, who pointed out that the disease is transmitted from person to person and the development of tuberculosis is influenced mainly by the external environment.

Before, tuberculosis was accepted as consumption, hence the name of this disease was phthisiology (from the Greek phthisis). As you know, tuberculosis is a dangerous infectious disease that causes pathogens of tuberculosis - mycobacteria. Tuberculosis is characterized by the formation in the body of one or more foci of inflammation, which can develop in various organs, but more often this disease affects the lung tissue.

For the first time the infectious nature of such a serious disease as tuberculosis was proved in the 19th century. The discovery was made in 1882 by the German Robert Koch, who not only explained in detail what tuberculosis is, but also revealed the type of microbacteria that cause it.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, unlike other types of microbes, is extremely tenacious: this bacterium excels in both snow and earth, it is resistant to acids and alcohol. Destroy the bacterium can only be a long time acting on it with high temperatures or chlorine-containing substances. Also, this species of microbacteria does not tolerate exposure to direct sunlight.

Almost every one of us in childhood, or being in adolescence, "gets" various mycobacteria from the external environment, but this does not lead to the appearance of tuberculosis. "Weak" bacilli, which are unable to cause disease, regularly stimulate and enhance anti-tuberculosis immunity. For the purpose of immunization, specifically weakened mycobacteria are introduced into the human body, which are commonly known as BCG (Calmette-Guerin bacilli), which increases the protection against "aggressive" bacteria, which often leads to disastrous consequences.

Infection with "aggressive" microbacteria often comes from a person with an active form of the disease, who, sneezing, coughing and even just talking, spreads Koch's rods around him. Much less often, infection occurs when using dairy products obtained from tuberculosis-infected animals. Active development of the disease usually occurs in the presence of factors such as adverse living conditions (both social and environmental); The presence of concomitant diseases in an infected person (gastric ulcer, diabetes, lung diseases); Stress; Malnutrition. To a sharp decrease in immunity, and accordingly to the risk of getting tuberculosis, various types of drug addiction, smoking and alcoholism lead.

So, what is tuberculosis, and how is the development of this disease? Getting into the human body, Koch's wand leads to the fact that in the lungs, as well as in the lymph nodes, inflammation foci begin to form. This process is called primary tuberculosis. Over time, such foci can scarify, but the microbacteria that are in them often go into a kind of "dormant" state, and when appropriate conditions begin to multiply.

Tuberculosis is a disease in which the active form of which Koch's stick with blood and lymph can actively spread throughout the body. The disease can affect not only the lungs, but also other organs and tissues: bones, skin, eyes, intestines, genitourinary system, meninges. However, today many people, even knowing what TB is, neglect the annual fluorography and evade vaccination, which in turn leads to the fact that the number of people suffering from this terrible disease is on an alarming scale.