Abstract
Over thousands of years, Tuberculosis, also known as consumption and the White Plague, has exacted a heavy toll on humankind, affecting humans as far back as Ancient Egypt. In the United States, infection rates skyrocketed during the 19th century and became the leading cause of death in the 20th century as the disease spread due to the cramped and unsanitary housing conditions of rapidly expanding cities. Breathe Pennsylvania has fought tuberculosis, or TB, and other respiratory ailments in Western Pennsylvania for more than a century. Established in 1905 as the Pittsburgh Sanitarium by Otis H. Childs, a local industrialist who lost his wife to the disease, the organization represented the first coordinated effort to combat TB in Pittsburgh.
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