Tuberculosis of the Skin

Abstract

In the past 40 years, the incidence of tuberculosis has declined steadily throughout the Western world. It is not known whether this is due to the successful use of BCG as an antituberculosis vaccine (a belief widely held in Europe) or whether it is simply the result of a better standard of living and more efficacious antituberculosis therapy (more widely believed in the United States). Tuberculosis is still rife in the less affluent parts of the third world; however, it is not a tropical disease in the same sense as are onchocerciasis and rhinoscleroma. Its high persistance in the tropics justifies the consideration of cutaneous tuberculosis in this book.