I also recall specifically from America during the colonial days, that people who died of tuberculosis were thought to become vampires, and to come back and steal the breath of their loved ones until the entire family was dead. (Thus explaining the phenomena of airborn disease vectors to people who didn't understand germs)

They dealt with this by cutting off the corpse's legs, taking the thigh bones, and laying them in the sign of the cross underneath the chin. Thus, the corpse would not be able to walk around anymore.

Several skeletons were found thus in a Massachusetts graveyard which had flooded during a river's spring thaw, and all of them showed tubercles, which the disease leaves on the bones in its advanced state.

Cool, huh?