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Historical Perspectives of Musculoskeletal Tuberculosis

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Tuberculosis of the Spine

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Abstract

The modern strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis might have appeared 20,000–15,000 years ago. India and China account for the first written description of tuberculosis around 3300 and 2300 years ago, respectively. In Ancient Greece, Hippocrates (400–300 BC) described Phthisis or Consumption as a fatal disease. The term “Pott’s disease” was coined by Sir Percivall Pott, a British surgeon in 1779. Johann Lukas Schönlein first used the term “tuberculosis” in 1839. Tubercle bacillus was first isolated by Robert Koch. The sanatorium treatment was first described in 1854 by Hermann Brehmer. Menard (1895) described “costo-transversectomy.” This approach was further developed by Griffiths, Roaf, and Seddon. Norman Capener (1933) developed the classical “anterolateral decompression.” The Frenchmen, Calmette, and Guérin developed BCG vaccine. The first successful Anti-tubercular drug Streptomycin was discovered by Selman Waksman in September 1943. Hodgson in 1960 popularized “The Hong Kong Surgery.” Tuli from India in 1975 published successful results of the “middle path regimen.” In recent years, “all posterior” approach to the tubercular spine has become popular. In the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the AIDS epidemic, tuberculosis re-emerged as a potential threat to humanity. The emergence Drug-Resistant strains have led to the complete abrogation of single or dual drug therapy. Multidrug therapies for a prolonged period are the norm now. New antitubercular drugs are being developed, e.g., Bedaquiline, Delamanid, and Pretomanid.

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  1. Manipal Hospital, Dwarka, New Delhi, India

    Ashish Dagar

  2. Center for Scoliosis & Advanced Spine Surgery, Dallas, TX, USA

    Dilip K. Sengupta

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  1. Department of Orthopaedics, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Punjab, India

    Sarvdeep Singh Dhatt

  2. Department of Orthopaedics, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Punjab, India

    Vishal Kumar

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Dagar, A., Sengupta, D.K. (2022). Historical Perspectives of Musculoskeletal Tuberculosis. In: Dhatt, S.S., Kumar, V. (eds) Tuberculosis of the Spine. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9495-0_1

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