How did tuberculosis treatment differ before antibiotics were available?

Before the development of effective antibiotic therapy in the 1940s and 1950s, medical treatment for tuberculosis was largely ineffective and relied on non-pharmacological interventions.12

Historically, the primary management strategies included:

• Bed Rest: Patients were often prescribed long periods of rest, sometimes lasting for years, to manage the disease.2
• Surgery: In selected cases, physicians performed resectional surgery to remove useless or damaged lung tissue or to address chronic cavities that had formed in the lungs.12
• Supportive Care: While medical treatments were generally ineffectual, improvements in diet, housing, and general hygiene were responsible for a decline in mortality rates that began well before the introduction of antibiotics.1

The introduction of streptomycin in 1944, followed by other agents like isoniazid and rifampicin, revolutionized care by allowing clinicians to fight the infection directly, making surgical intervention rarely necessary today.123