The editorial describes briefly, the history of hospitalization for pulmonary TB, noting that this history, in the two succeeding centuries, had been chequered, as it was influenced by successive scientific advances. Currently, even the near revolution of modern chemotherapy has not made hospitalization obsolete. In the developing world, this may not happen for a long time, because admission criteria other than medical could have equal weight. Those who will not accept that hospitalization for TB may have become irrelevant were ignoring economic reality and sensible practicality. It is urged, therefore, that hospitalization for TB be confined to managing emergencies, as a part of general emergency services. In developing countries, all the beds thus released could be handed over to the GHS as contribution to newly emerging primary and secondary health services.