Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...ted-in-the-1970s/story-e6frg8y6-1226068504867
Tuberculosis is having a resurgence on the streets of London, after it was nearly eradicated in the 1970s
* Chris Smyth
* From: The Times
* June 03, 2011 10:22AM
TUBERCULOSIS has been in Britain since at least 300 BC, yet doctors are still under pressure to eradicate the disease.
The perception was that the Western world had beaten TB, or that it was a disease brought in by immigrants. But it's becoming worryingly common again, after an outbreak in the UK.
Stuart Ford's lungs are wrecked by tuberculosis. His emaciated body racked by consumptive coughing, he cuts a Dickensian figure.
A legacy of life on the streets of London, he talks with difficulty, constantly pausing for breath as he makes dark jokes through a mouth of blackened teeth.
Yet Mr Ford is not a character from a Victorian novel. He is alive - if only just - in 2011, and spoke to The Times in a hostel only a few hundred yards from the Houses of Parliament...
Tuberculosis is having a resurgence on the streets of London, after it was nearly eradicated in the 1970s
* Chris Smyth
* From: The Times
* June 03, 2011 10:22AM
TUBERCULOSIS has been in Britain since at least 300 BC, yet doctors are still under pressure to eradicate the disease.
The perception was that the Western world had beaten TB, or that it was a disease brought in by immigrants. But it's becoming worryingly common again, after an outbreak in the UK.
Stuart Ford's lungs are wrecked by tuberculosis. His emaciated body racked by consumptive coughing, he cuts a Dickensian figure.
A legacy of life on the streets of London, he talks with difficulty, constantly pausing for breath as he makes dark jokes through a mouth of blackened teeth.
Yet Mr Ford is not a character from a Victorian novel. He is alive - if only just - in 2011, and spoke to The Times in a hostel only a few hundred yards from the Houses of Parliament...