An History of the Fight Against Tuberculosis in Canada.

Diagnosis of TB

Skin Test

This test was performed, by injecting a small amount of tuberculin into the skin, to tell whether or not a person had been infected with tuberculosis.

If positive, it did not necessarily mean the person had the disease tuberculosis. Positive tuberculin reactors would have been x-rayed to see if the infection had gone on to disease.

Diagnosis

Introduction

The results of the skin test may have been "positive", meaning that you had been in contact with TB germs. An x-ray would then determine if the germs had done any harm.

A young hospital worker receives a tuberculin injection to test for TB infection. If the test results were negative, hospital workers were often given BCG vaccination to prevent infection.

The Tuberculin skin test is still performed today, if a doctor thinks that a patient might be infected with the TB bacteria.

This digital collection was produced under contract to Canada's Digital Collections program, Industry Canada. The website was produced by a CDC team at the Saskatchewan Lung Association. Visit the bibliography for a list of content sources and the image catalog for graphic source and credit information.