ABSTRACT
Pulmonary tuberculosis led to the birth of thoracic surgery. The techniques of pulmonary resection in use today were developed to deal with the persisting problem of tuberculosis (TB) in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In addition, collapse therapy led to the development of thoracoplasty, still of value in rare circumstances today [1], now refined by the development of video-assisted technology. Plombage has evolved into techniques of space reduction, such as myoplasty and omentoplasty. As the incidence of tuberculosis declined in developed countries, these techniques were left as a valuable legacy and were available to deal with the next epidemic – lung cancer and the chronic infective complications that resulted from this surgery.
