George Orwell died of pneumonia died in 1950, nearly a decade after antibiotics were synthesised. Why did this disease kill him in spite of treatments being available?

People die of pneumonia despite antibiotics all the time. Over 50000 in the US last year alone.

But Orwell's immediate cause of death is thought to have been an acute pulmonary hemorrhage related to tuberculosis. At the time streptomycin was the only available antimycobacterial drug. It wasn't widely available and he wasn't even started on it until months after his diagnosis. He may well have had the TB for many years prior to diagnosis as the life he led would have been rife with opportunities for infection. He's known to have suffered from respiratory complaints all his life and was a heavy smoker so he certainly had chronically diseased lungs.

Highly-recommended further reading including some of Orwell's own accounts of his illness and treatments A perhaps more medically-focused account of his health with more details of historical treatments for TB.. I found the description of plombage treatments especially fascinating as I met someone in the late 1990s who'd undergone the procedure decades previously and still had half her chest filled with ping-pong balls