Whooping Cough: History, Origins, and Causes - A Comprehensive Overview

Whooping cough has been known since at least the 16th century and is thought to have originated in Europe.[8] There have been speculations throughout history as to the causes of whooping cough—one was that the cause was an accumulation of phlegm that caused choking,[8] and during the 16th–19th centuries it was thought to be due to excess "black bile".[9] The bacterium that causes the disease was ultimately discovered by Jules Bordet and Octave Gengou in 1906 in Brussels, during the height of the Belle Époque, using a novel experimental setup that they devised.[10]