Are tuberculosis and the black death the same thing?
My English teacher keeps telling me they are. I'm don't think so. Links?
Other - Health - 5 Answers
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1 :
No. I don't think so!
2 :
The Black Death was bubonic plague, not tuberculosis. Although there was a pneumonic element to the Black Death (lymph nodes, lungs and blood could be infected, sometimes all at once), it wasn't tuberculosis. Some scientists also think that it was caused by a viral hemorrhagic fever, which is still not tuberculosis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Death
3 :
Black death is the bubonic plague or the pneumonic plague, tuberculosis is something completely different. I think you English teacher needs to stick to teaching english.
4 :
No, they are not the same thing. Tuberculosis is caused by an organism called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The Black Death is a form of the plague, bubonic or systemic, caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis. You are talking two different diseases here, or at least the teacher is. Tuberculosis has been called "The Wasting disease" or "consumption" at various times in history. The plague got the name Black Death in medieval Europe, because of the way it caused death in the victims. If they developed the bubonic form, the poor person became nearly covered with large buboes, or swellings, in the groin, neck, and armpits. Those would often turn black, and the rest of the body would be splotched blue/black. In the systemic form, the plague overwhelms the entire body, and the person dies of massive, body wide internal bleeding, which also gives the skin a rather blue black look. They were most certainly not the same thing, not even to the poor folks back then who didn't exactly understand what the problem was. Even they realized they were two different diseases.
5 :
They certainly are not. Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria of the genus Micobacterium. Currently, tuberculosis is barely under control in many parts of the world. Your English teacher is probably thinking of the 19th century, when many interesting artists were afflicted with it. See a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tuberculosis_victims The tuberculosis article below has quite a bit of general information about tuberculosis, including the following: "TB was romanticized in the nineteenth century. Many people believed TB produced feelings of euphoria referred to as Spes phthisica ("hope of the consumptive"). It was believed that TB sufferers who were artists had bursts of creativity as the disease progressed. It was also believed that TB sufferers acquired a final burst of energy just before they died that made women more beautiful and men more creative. In the early 20th century, some believed TB to be caused by masturbation." There is a little debate about the Black Death. It spread very fast, killed people very fast, and then appeared to die out in the early 17th century, although there were occasional outbreaks after that. It was thought to be Bubonic Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and carried by fleas on rats. This disease is still found in a few places, even in the USA. There is also a theory that it was caused by a viral hemorrhagic fever, something like Ebola virus, which you may have read about
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