Through its effect on the world's population and major artists in various fields, tuberculosis has appeared in many forms in human culture. The disease was for centuries associated with poetic and artistic qualities in its sufferers, and was known as "the romantic disease".[2] Many artistic figures, including the poet John Keats, the composer Frédéric Chopin and the artist Edvard Munch, either had the disease or were close to others who did.
Tuberculosis has played prominent and recurring roles in diverse fields. These include literature, as in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, set in a sanatorium; in music, as in Van Morrison's song "T.B. Sheets"; in opera, as in Puccini's La bohème and Verdi's La Traviata; in art, as in Monet's painting of his first wife Camille on her deathbed; and in film, such as the 1945 The Bells of St. Mary's starring Ingrid Bergman as a nun with tuberculosis. The disease also appears in fields such as anime and manga.