In 1890 Koch erroneously announced that he had found a cure against tuberculosis.  The substance was tuberculin, prepared from killed M. tuberculosis.  It turned out, however, that it was useful in identifying persons with tuberculous infection.

From 1907 to 1910 the techniques for applying the tuberculin were developed.  All techniques have survived, but only the intradermal technique is recommended for tuberculin surveys.  All further discussions refer thus all to the intradermal tuberculin skin test.

With progress of the eradication program for M. bovis from cattle herds in the United States, Hastings reported in 1924 an increasing number of cattle reaction to tuberculin, but upon inspection at necropsy, no tuberculous lesion was identified.

Non-specific cross-reactions resulting from environmental mycobacteria were soon suspected to be a cause for such findings.

In 1934 Florence Seibert produced a large batch of a purified tuberculin, named PPD-S (for Purified Protein Derivative - Standard) which became in the 1950ies the international standard.

WHO conducted large tuberculin surveys in the 1950ies from which much knowledge about test behavior was gained.  A very large study among US Navy recruits helped further to elucidate reasons and frequency of cross-reactions.  Tuberculin surveys done in a representative sample of the South Korean population, repeated at five-year intervals over 30 years, offer a wealth of information about temporal trends in the prevalence of infection in a rapidly industrializing country.

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