[Some aspects of the history of tuberculosis with special reference to Finland]

A popular theory has been that Mycobacterium (M) tuberculosis evolved from M. bovis after cattle domestication. The evidence of M. tuberculosis complex in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus and the paleopathological evidence from the Near East indicate that this relationship between cattle domestication and evolution of tuberculosis might not have been so straightforward. Tuberculosis was already familiar in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages. In Finland consumption was firmly established in both towns and countryside at the end of the 1700s and the epidemic peaked during the following century. Tuberculosis infection must have been an almost universal feature of childhood in many areas of Finland, even in the early decades of the 20th century. After the Second World War, specific and effective chemotherapy and preventive measures rapidly diminished the number of new cases of tuberculosis.