The Sick Child (1927) by Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch, a Norwegian artis (1885-1926) was a famous artist whose silent bride and most faithful companion since childhood was Death. The most painful event in Munch's life was when his mother died from tuberculosis when he was only five years old. His dearest sister Johanne Sophie died from same malaise in 1877 at the age of fourteen, and he himself was of frail health.
Alias names - Consumption (Latin), Phthisis (Greek), Yakshma (India)
Back in the 1800s if you had to die, consumption was the way to go. It claimed many famous victims, including the poets John Keats and Robert Louis Stevenson and the novelists George Orwell and the Bronte sisters. It provided a romantic demise for the heroines of operas such as La Traviata and La Boheme (Krista Burton, 2014)
Nobel Laureate (1905)
“If the importance of a disease for mankind is measured by the number of fatalities it causes, then tuberculosis must be considered much more important than those most feared infectious diseases .… One in seven of all human beings dies from tuberculosis. If one only considers the productive middle-age groups, tuberculosis carries away one-third, and often more.” Robert Koch, 1882
"to be consumptive was almost a mark of distinction, and the pale pallor was considered standard of beauty” –Rene Dubos, M.D
John Keats
Nefertiti
Charlotte Bronte
Anton Chekov
