Jane Austen: TB or not TB?

TB has been back in the new this morning - because a scholar has claimed it may have killed Jane Austen.

The writer's death in 1817 was thought to have been a result of Addison's disease, a rare disorder of the adrenal glands.

But an expert in Addison's, Katherine White, has claimed that the symptoms Austen described are more likely to have been attributable to bovine tuberculosis, then common and often contracted from drinking unpasteurised milk.

Austen, who was was 41 when she died, often wrote about ill health and hypochondria, including in Pride and Prejudice.

And here, for Field Day's lady readers, is a photo of Mr Darcy...