Tuberculosis in the USA. 19th-century map of the eastern USA showing the location of cases of tuberculosis (TB), here called phthisis. This was part of a series of such maps, produced by US physician Sidney Howard Carney for the life insurance industry. The maps helped calculate insurance premiums, rather than to aid public health or for epidemiological research. Tuberculosis is an infection, usually of the lungs, by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It was a widespread cause of death before the use of a vaccine (from 1921) and antibiotics (from 1944). The five maps (TB, malaria, pneumonia, rheumatism, typhoid fever) were published in New York in 1874.