The Nameless Scourge: Tuberculosis in Ireland, 1800–the Present

The scourge of tuberculosis has long loomed large in world history, and perhaps our ongoing grappling with COVID-19 turns our thoughts to the invisible, transmissible, deadly tubercle bacillus. I place Irish fiction between 1800 and 2023 against the historical record, of which I here provide an overview. There existed little hope of a cure for tuberculosis before the watershed late 1940s, when Dr Noel Browne successfully tamed the scourge. Attempts to do so remained elusive until the coming together of a variety of fortuitous factors: manpower, knowledge, techniques, money and motivation. Tuberculosis has not entirely disappeared, but the conversation about the disease in Ireland is now conducted out in the open. Recent isolated outbreaks have been described in the newspapers with no attempts to conceal the facts. Vigilance remains necessary, and a comparison with the COVID-19 pandemic is useful. The responses developed and pushed by Drs Browne and Fauci in the face of a terrifying public health threat are striking in their similarities, and we would do well to heed the warnings from the past concerning the dangers of interweaving public health management with political agendas.