Analysis of mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units has allowed dating of the bottleneck to approximately 40,000 years ago, which corresponds to the period subsequent to the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa.

This analysis of mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units also dated the Mycobacterium bovis lineage as dispersing approximately 6,000 years ago, which may be linked to animal domestication and early farming.

In 2008, evidence for tuberculosis infection was discovered in human remains from the Neolithic era dating from 9,000 years ago, in Atlit Yam, a settlement in the eastern Mediterranean.

[19] The Huangdi Neijing classic Chinese medical text (c. 400 BCE – 260 CE), traditionally attributed to the mythical Yellow Emperor, describes a disease believed to be tuberculosis, called xulao bing (虛癆病 "weak consumptive disease"), characterized by persistent cough, abnormal appearance, fever, a weak and fast pulse, chest obstructions, and shortness of breath.

The Duanchu shizhai pin 斷除尸瘵品 "On the Extermination of the Corpse Disease" is the 23rd chapter in Daoist collection Wushang xuanyuan santian Yutang dafa 無上玄元三天玉堂大法 "Great Rites of the Jade Hall of the Three Heavens of the Supreme Mysterious Origins" (Daozang number 103).

The symptoms of the disease: When it begins, the sufferer coughs and pants; he spits blood [pulmonary hemorrhage]; he is emaciated and skinny; cold and fever affect him intermittently, and his dreams are morbid.

After the death of the sufferer, the clothes, curtains, bed or couch, vessels and utensils used by him are known to have been contaminated by and saturated with the polluted ch'i in which the noxious ku 蠱 [parasites or germs] take their abode.

[30]In addition, Daoist healers would burn talismans in order to fumigate the clothes and belongings of the deceased, and would warn the tuberculosis patient's family to throw away everything into a changliu shui 長流水 "everflowing stream".

Hippocrates, in Book 1 of his Of the Epidemics, describes the characteristics of the disease: fever, colourless urine, cough resulting in a thick sputa, and loss of thirst and appetite.

Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to Priscus in which he details the symptoms of phthisis as he saw them in Fannia: The attacks of fever stick to her, her cough grows upon her, she is in the highest degree emaciated and enfeebled.Galen proposed a series of therapeutic treatments for the disease, including: opium as a sleeping agent and painkiller; blood letting; a diet of barley water, fish, and fruit.

[35] Aretaeus was the first person to rigorously describe the symptoms of the disease in his text De causis et signis diuturnorum morborum:[36] Voice hoarse; neck slightly bent, tender, not flexible, somewhat extended; fingers slender, but joints thick; of the bones alone the figure remains, for the fleshy parts are wasted; the nails of the fingers crooked, their pulps are shrivelled and flat...Nose sharp, slender; cheeks prominent and red; eyes hollow, brilliant and glittering; swollen, pale or livid in countenance; the slender parts of the jaws rest on the teeth as, as if smiling; otherwise of cadaverous aspect...In his other book De curatione diuturnorum morborum, he recommends that affected individuals travel to high altitudes, travel by sea, eat a good diet and drink plenty of milk.

[37] In South America, reports of a study in August 2014 revealed that TB had likely been spread via seals that contracted it on beaches of Africa, from humans via domesticated animals, and carried it across the Atlantic.

A team at the University of Tübingen analyzed tuberculosis DNA in 1,000-year-old skeletons of the Chiribaya culture in southern Peru; so much genetic material was recovered that they could reconstruct the genome.

[48] Richard Morton published Phthisiologia, seu exercitationes de Phthisi tribus libris comprehensae in 1689, in which he emphasized the tubercle as the true cause of the disease.

In 1768, Robert Whytt gave the first clinical description of tuberculosis meningitis[53] and, in 1779, Percivall Pott, an English surgeon, described the vertebral lesions that carry his name.

[55] William Stark proposed that ordinary lung tubercles could eventually evolve into ulcers and cavities, believing that the different forms of tuberculosis were simply different manifestations of the same disease.

[56] In his Systematik de speziellen Pathologie und Therapie, J. L. Schönlein, Professor of Medicine in Zurich, proposed that the word "tuberculosis" be used to describe the condition of tubercles.

[57][58] The incidence of tuberculosis grew progressively during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, displacing leprosy, peaking between the 18th and 19th century as field workers moved to the cities looking for work.

[62][63][64][65] In the 18th century, TB had a mortality rate as high as 900 deaths (800–1000) per 100,000 population per year in Western Europe, including in places like London, Stockholm and Hamburg.

[71] The disease began to represent spiritual purity and temporal wealth, leading many young, upper-class women to purposefully pale their skin to achieve the consumptive appearance.

People ignored public-health campaigns to limit the spread of contagious diseases, such as the prohibition of spitting on the streets, the strict guidelines to care for infants and young children, and quarantines that separated families from ill loved ones.

Louis would go on to use statistical methods to evaluate the different aspects of the disease's progression, the efficacy of various therapies and individuals' susceptibility, publishing an article in the Annales d'hygiène publique entitled "Note on the Relative Frequency of Phthisis in the Two Sexes".

[70][80] In 1869, Jean Antoine Villemin demonstrated that the disease was indeed contagious, conducting an experiment in which tuberculous matter from human cadavers was injected into laboratory rabbits, which then became infected.

[73] In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the X-ray, which allowed physicians to diagnose and track the progression of the disease,[82] and although an effective medical treatment would not come for another fifty years, the incidence and mortality of tuberculosis began to decline.

[89] Data on experimental inquiry published in Deutsche Landwirthschafts-Zeitung provided immediate practical industry benefits in the form of the Tuberculin test as an aide to diagnosis in both sick and healthy cattle.

Statistics have shown that 1/7 of all humans die of tuberculosis.The advancement of scientific understanding of tuberculosis, and its contagious nature created the need for institutions to house affected individuals.

The first proposal for a tuberculosis facility was made in paper by George Bodington entitled An essay on the treatment and cure of pulmonary consumption, on principles natural, rational and successful in 1840.

The use of dispensaries to treat middle and lower-class individuals in major metropolitan areas and the coordination between various levels of health services programs like hospitals, sanatoriums, and tuberculosis colonies became known as the "Edinburgh Anti-tuberculosis Scheme".

A negative confirmation of the McKeown thesis was that increased pressure on wages by IMF loans to post-communist Eastern Europe were strongly associated with a rise in TB incidence, prevalence and mortality.

In later decades, posters, pamphlets and newspapers continued to inform people about the risk of contagion and methods to avoid it, including increasing public awareness about the importance of good hygiene.