This article examines the application of tuberculosis statistics in the Colombian medical discourse, the gap between these statistics and data officially published, as well as the relationship between the quantitative dynamics, the anti-tuberculosis campaign and the objectivation of tuberculosis in labor world in Colombia over the period ranging from the beginning of the campaign (1916) to the inclusion of tuberculosis in the list of professional diseases (1946). It also analyzes the critical role that labor statistics played in the first developments of the Colombian social security system and in the definition of professional diseases. These historical processes were studied according to its insertion in the international context.