Consuming Art in a Time of Consumption
Written by Nancy Selwood-Metcalfe
Edited by Isabel Louie
Tuberculosis (TB), also known as consumption, was a pandemic in Europe in the 1800s. For most of its duration it was seen as a hereditary disease (1). It was only in 1882, when Robert Koch confirmed the presence of the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) to be the cause of TB, that people understood it was pathogenic and spread by aerosols from patients with pulmonary disease (1). Before its medical demystification, TB it was not only a condition, but also a cultural phenomenon, shaping art, literature, and social ideals as it came to symbolise beauty, and artistic genius in the 19th century.
Tuberculosis primarily affects the lungs and spreads through the air through droplets when an infected individual coughs, sneezes, or spits (2). Even brief exposure, the inhalation of only a few bacteria, can result in infection (2). Mtb has a slow growth rate, meaning sufferers deteriorated over a long period associated with specific changes in physical appearance (3). This included sparkling or dilated eyes, rosy cheeks, red lips as well as pale skin and weight loss from a lack of appetite and anaemia (3). This ideal of beauty was embraced by the Romantic movement which emphasised fragility and sensitivity (3). Because of its high transmissibility, TB affected not only the poor but also members of the middle and upper classes. Influential romanticists like John Keats became powerful symbols of the disease, and he often mentioned his own struggles with it in poems like “On seeing a Lock of Milton’s Hair” (1818), where he references his fever (3). Other famous people suffering from consumption at the time include novelist Emily Brontë and composer Frederic Chopin, both of whom tragically died from it (3).
The aestheticism of consumption became idealised due to cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical ideas of the time. Romanticism associated this fragile beauty with depth of feeling and heightened moral or aesthetic sensibility, and suffering was often seen in popular literature, poetry, and visual art that included noble, tragic heroes or heroines (4). It was also seen as a social distinction, as thinness and pale skin were associated with the wealthy who didn’t have to rely on labour (3). These visible symptoms of TB – thinness, flushed cheeks, and languid movements – became the beauty standard, a way to live, and a tragic and beautiful way to die (3,4). This was enforced through an aesthetic motif in art and literature (3). The painting Ophelia by John Everett Millais, depicts Shakespeare’s Hamlet character just before drowning with pale, fragile skin and red lips, embodying the delicate beauty and poignant suffering associated with the idealised consumptive woman (3). This also appears in operas like Verdi’s La Traviata and Puccini’s La Bohème, which portrays women who defy domestic expectations and are punished for it, reflecting both a fascination with female fragility and the period’s misogynistic belief that women’s value depended on obedience, love, and self-sacrifice (3). TB became a cultural performance, an identity which captivated audiences fascinated by both suffering and allure.
Photos taken by Julia Leavitt (jal569@cornell.edu)
After Mtb was identified, revealing TB as an infectious disease, public perception dramatically changed, and reframed the condition as a serious public health threat (3). There was a steady decrease in the incidence and mortality of TB in affluent countries until World War I and the TB epidemic in the 1980s due to the HIV pandemic (1). Both surges called for campaigns to educate the population about transmission and hygiene, emphasizing prevention and containment rather than romantic admiration (1,4). Newspapers and propaganda no longer depicted TB sufferers as tragic heroines, but instead as carriers of disease, highlighting poverty, overcrowding, and low hygiene (1,3). This transition shows the cultural shift that occurred from consuming illness as an art to fighting it with public health interventions, initiated through scientific research.
These earlier perceptions of TB reveal humanity’s tendency to romanticise suffering, especially when its cause is unknown. Art and literature intensified this, reflecting society’s fascination with emotion, tragedy, and fragile beauty. The desirability of TB faded only when science exposed its pathogenicity, revealing a complacency that persists in modern ideals of thinness and pallor. Ultimately, this history reminds us how easily beauty can be constructed from pain, and how scientific understanding reshapes not only disease itself but the meanings that culture ascribes to it.
Nancy Selwood-Metcalfe 27’ is a Biological Sciences major in the College of Agriculture and life sciences, on exchange from London for the year. She can be reached at ns2233@cornell.edu.
Sources:
(1) Meya DB, McAdam KP. The TB pandemic: an old problem seeking new solutions. Journal of internal medicine. 2007 Apr;261(4):309-29.
(2) World Health Organization. Tuberculosis [Internet]. Geneva: WHO; [cited 2025 Nov 02]. Available from: https://www.who.int/health-topics/tuberculosis#tab=tab_1
(3) Hibbard A, Lopez Rosa A. Tuberculosis and the Fatal Beauty of Romanticism [Internet]. American Society for Microbiology; 2025 May 14 [cited 2025 Nov 02]. Available from: https://asm.org/articles/2025/may/tuberculosis-and-fatal-beauty-romanticism
(4) Daniel TM, Bates JH, Downes KA. History of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis: pathogenesis, protection, and control. 1994 May 16:13-24.
