Until just half a century ago--the 1950s--tuberculosis was a leading cause of death in the industrialized world, as it still is today everywhere else. TB is not just a disease of the poor and ordinary. Many well-known people have either suffered life-long debilitation or died from it.
Kings, Politicians, and the Powerful
King Edward VI of England, the only son of King Henry VIII, died of TB at 16 in 1553. When Edward died, the throne went first to his sister Mary (known as "Bloody Mary") and then to his other sister, who reigned as Queen Elizabeth.
George Washington, American Revolutionary War General and First President of the United States suffered several illnesses that might have been TB; he himself called them consumption.
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady & widow of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, prominent journalist and social activist, died of drug-resistant TB in 1962.
Poets & Writers
John Keats, the English Romantic poet, died of TB in 1821, only a year after his first symptom.
Robert Lewis Stevenson, author of "Treasure Island" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," suffered from TB throughout his life
Several members of the talented Bronte family died of TB in the 1800s, among them three writers: Branwell, Anne, Emily (author of "Wuthering Heights")and Charlotte (author of "Jane Eyre").
Henry David Thoreau, author of "Walden," died of TB at 45 in 1862.
Feodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian existentialist and novelist, author of "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov," died of TB at 60 in 1881. He described TB in "The House of the Dead."
Anton Chekhov, the Russian doctor and playwright, author of "The Seagull," "The Cherry Orchard," and many short stories, died of TB at 44 in 1904.
Franz Kafka, author of "Metamorphosis" and "The Trial," died of TB at 41 in 1924.
Katherine Mansfield, author of many well-known short stories, died of TB at 35 in 1923, bleeding to death from a TB related lung hemorrhage.
D.H. Lawrence, poet and author of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," died at 45 in 1930.
Thomas Wolfe, author of "Look Homeward Angel" and "You Can't Go Home Again," died at 37 in 1938 after brain surgery revealed that TB had spread.
George Orwell, author of "1984" and "Animal Farm," died of TB at 47 in 1950.
Doctors and Scientists
Rene Laennec, the French physician who invented the stethoscope, died of TB at 45 in 1826.
Thomas Wakley, the doctor who founded the international medical journal "The Lancet," died of TB in 1862 while on a rest cure in the mild climate of Madeira.
Doc Holliday, the American frontier doctor (actually a dentist) died of TB at 36 in 1887. He survived the infamous shootout at the OK Corral but succumbed to his TB.
Henry Livingston Trudeau, the father of the TB sanatorium movement in the United States, died of TB at 67 in 1915.
Musicians & Composers
Frederic Chopin, the pianist & composer, died of TB at 39 in 1849 after unsuccessful treatment trips to southern European climates.
Stephen Foster, composer of "Oh! Susanna," "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and "My Old Kentucky Home," died of TB at 38 in 1864.
Artists and Actors
Amadeo Modigliani, the Italian sculptor and painter, died of TB at 36 in 1920.
Vivien Leigh, who won an Oscar for her role as Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind," died of TB at 54 in 1967 from a TB related lung hemorrhage.
