(1) At the turn of the 19th century an epidemic of TB on the Eastern Seaboard of the USA was due to waves of European immigration into cheap slum housing. So great was the demand for passages to the US that a whole fleet of fast steamships were built. The most famous of these was The Titanic. Had the Titanic not sank, many of her steerage passengers would have reached New York, and a new life, only to die of TB.