A hereditary or family-pattern form of tuberculosis where the disease appears to run in families due to shared genetic factors or repeated environmental exposure.
Combination of 'heredo-' (hereditary) and 'tuberculosis' (the infectious lung disease). Coined in 19th-century medicine when tuberculosis was called 'consumption' and seemed to run in families.
Before we understood germ theory and genetic inheritance, TB killed so many family members in close quarters that people thought it was purely hereditary—but it was actually the bacteria spreading through the air they shared!
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