The life of the renowned Chilean writer, Oscar Castro Zúñiga, was interrupted early, when he was 37 years old. He acquired tuberculosis during the epidemic in our country between the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. He developed the disease during a crucial stage in terms of diagnosis and treatment, coinciding with the end of the sanatorium stage and the first chemotherapeutic attempts. The symptoms and treatments of the disease in that age are described analyzing the letters, both written by himself and by people close to him and the biographies published during the historical and personal context of the artist.