Greek, “to form or mold a new joint”), she was not the first human to have
a shoulder implant inserted.
Tuberculosis is still a worldwide infectious disease conundrum. Caused
by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB is spread from person to
person through the air when infected patients cough, spit, or sneeze.
Unlike a staph infection of the skin, which is characterized by a reddened,
often pus-filled abscess, TB does not gain entrance to the body via the
skin, but through the lungs. Today, one-third of the world’s population has
latent TB, which means that the bacteria have established a foothold in the
pulmonary tissues, but have not yet caused illness (nor are the patients
able to transmit the disease). Because of the typically slow onset of TB,
patients may linger for years with a mild cough, night sweats, and
progressive weight loss. If bacteria were capable of strategic planning, this
would be their plan for establishing a beachhead to all of humanity: make
the disease tolerable at the onset while targeting the lungs, where
infestation and irritation will trigger coughing and hacking, leading to the
conveyance of aerosolized droplets of bacterial colonies in the new
crowded cities of the world in the post-industrialized era. Touching
someone with a staph infection can get you infected, but stand one foot
away and you’re safe. Conversely, touching someone with TB cannot
spread the disease; share a room or workplace with a TB patient and you
can die.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a bacterium that has been afflicting
mankind for at least ten thousand years, and is still an important
worldwide pathogen (killing over a million people per year). TB is
simultaneously one of the most deadly, curable, and preventable diseases
in the world,^1 and the World Health Organization estimates that over two
billion people are infected with the organism. Most Americans and
Europeans today are shielded from the realities of the global epidemic, but
until recently, no one was sheltered from the scourge of consumption (as
the pulmonary form of TB infection was called). Like a dental cavity that
eventually degenerates into an abscessed tooth, chronic pulmonary TB can
transmute into infectious tubercles in the bones of the spine or extremities,
or even brain tissue.
When a mycobacterial infection spreads to the bones, a progressive
deformity, with years-in-the-making, slow-motion churning and gurgling
of bone (like bubbling tar) develops, and the warped limbs and joints