March 24: World Tuberculosis Day

Luigi Boccherini
1743-1805

March 24, 2014 is World Tuberculosis Day, Tuberculosis is not the scourge it used to be, but it is still a worldwide health threat.  According to the United States' Center for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 10,000 cases of TB were diagnosed in 2012 in the United States, 100 of them in Indiana.

Tuberculosis has cut short the lives of many creative people, and profoundly influenced others. You may not even realize it when you read biographies because the word "consumption" is often used. Left untreated it kills up to half of its victims, but in the Twentieth Century treatment became more reliable and available.

These are some musicians who contracted TB:

Frédéric Chopin
1810-1849

• Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805),  Cellist and composer.
• Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849),  Pianist and composer.
• Charlie Christian (1916-1942), jazz guitarist. 
• Johann Gottleib Goldberg (1727-1756), of "Goldberg" variations fame.
• Yusuf Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens, b. 1948), singer-songwriter.  His bout with TB in 1969 was a pivotal experience in his life
• Tom Jones (1940- ), pop singer.  He had TB as a child and spent two years recovering, listening to music.



Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
1710-1736

• Vasily Kalinnikov (1866-1901), Russian symphony composer
• Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), opera composer. He finished his Stabat Mater composition just two days before his death.
• Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933), country singer.  His best known song is "TB Blues."
• Johann Schein (1586-1630), German composer
• Ringo Starr  (1940 - ), contracted tuberculosis at age eleven and spent two years in a santitorium, where he learned to play drums as a form of therapy.



Ringo Starr
1940 -

• Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), modernist composer.  He survived his TB but his wife and one daughter did not.
• Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), opera and symphonic composer

For more information about tuberculosis, check CardCat for books and government publications, and Medline for scholarly articles in English (log-in required from off-campus).