Social representations of tuberculosis: stigma and prejudice

Abstract

Social representations of tuberculosis are analyzed at the turn of the 20th century, focusing on aspects associated to feelings and contradictory manifestations awakened by the disease. The romanticized pattern of experience of this disease was replaced by a more naturalistic vision, though the stigmas and prejudices are reinforced. To this day it is possible to detect some aspects about the way of perceiving tuberculosis, which marked its presence in the past. The persistence of the stigmatization of tuberculosis and of the people who suffer from it consists in a serious obstacle to the disease's control nowadays.