Sanatorium

A sanatorium (from

Sanatoriums should not be confused with the Russian sanatoriums from the time of the Soviet Union, which were a type of sanatorium resort residence for workers.

History

Conception

The first suggestion of sanatoria in the modern sense was likely made by

In the early 20th century, tuberculosis sanatoria became common in the United States.^[9] The first of several in Asheville, North Carolina was established by Dr. Horatio Page Gatchell in 1871, before the cause of tuberculosis (then called "phthisis" or "consumption") was even known. Fifty years earlier, Dr. J.F.E. Hardy had reportedly been cured in the "healing climate". Medical experts reported that at 2,200 feet (670 m) above sea level, air pressure was equal to that in blood vessels, and activities, scenery, and lack of stress also helped.^[10] In the early 1900s, Arizona's sunshine and dry desert air attracted many people (called "lungers") who had tuberculosis, rheumatism, asthma, and numerous other diseases. Wealthier people chose to recuperate in exclusive TB resorts, while others used their savings to journey to Arizona and arrived penniless. TB camps in the desert were formed by pitching tents and building cabins. During the tuberculosis epidemic, cities in Arizona advertised the state as an ideal place for treating TB. Many sanatoria in Arizona were modeled after European away-from-city resorts of the time, boasting courtyards and individual rooms. Each sanatorium was equipped to take care of about 120 people.

The first sanatorium in the Pacific Northwest opened in Milwaukie Heights, Oregon, in 1905, followed closely by the first state-owned TB hospital in Salem, Oregon, in 1910. Oregon was the first state on the West Coast to enact legislation stating that the government was to supply proper housing for people with TB who could not receive adequate care at home.^[11] The West Coast became a popular spot for sanatoriums.

The greatest area for sanatoria was in Tucson with over 12^[quantify] hotel-style facilities in the city. By 1920, Tucson had 7,000 people who had come for treatment of tuberculosis. So many people came to the West that not enough housing was available. In 1910, tent cities began to pop up in different areas; one was described as a place of squalor and shunned by most citizens. Many of the infected slept in the open desert. The area adjacent to what was then central Phoenix, called Sunnyslope, was home to another large TB encampment. The residents primarily lived in tents pitched along the hillsides of the mountains that rise to the north of the city. Several sanatoria also opened in southern California in the early 20th century due to the dry, warm climate.^[12]

The first tuberculosis sanatorium for blacks in the segregated South was the Piedmont Sanatorium in Burkeville, Virginia.^[13] Waverly Hills Sanatorium, a Louisville, Kentucky, tuberculosis sanatorium, was founded in 1911. It has become a mecca for curiosity seekers who believe it is haunted.^[14] Because of its dry climate, Colorado Springs was home to several sanatoria. A. G. Holley Hospital in Lantana, Florida, was the last remaining freestanding tuberculosis sanatorium in the United States until it closed on July 2, 2012.^[15]

In 1907, Stannington Sanatorium was opened in the North East of England to treat tuberculosis in children. The sanatorium was opened using funds raised by a local charity, the Poor Children's Holiday Association, now the region's oldest children's charity, Children North East.^[16] The largest U.S. tuberculosis sanatorium was located on the site of Chicago's present-day North Park Village. Chicago's Peterson Park fieldhouse housed the lab and morgue of Chicago's Municipal Tuberculosis Sanatorium.^[17]

Discovery of antibiotics and decline

After 1943, when Albert Schatz, then a graduate student at Rutgers University, discovered streptomycin, an antibiotic and the first cure for tuberculosis, sanatoria began to close. As in the case of the Paimio Sanatorium, many were transformed into general hospitals. By the 1950s, tuberculosis was no longer a major public health threat; it was controlled by antibiotics rather than extended rest. Most sanatoria had been demolished years before.^{[citation needed]}

Some, however, have been adapted for new medical roles. The

• The Magic Mountain, the 1924 novel by German writer and social critic Thomas Mann, is set in a sanatorium.^[19]
• The Austrian-American Jewish poet and artist Samuel Greenberg wrote three poems about his experiences in sanatoria, including "Wards Island Symphonique."^[20]
• The American heavy metal band Metallica has the song "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" on their 1986 Master of Puppets studio album, which had been in part inspired by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

See also

• Sanatorium (resort)
• Battle Creek Sanitarium (Michigan, United States)
• Leper colony
• List of sanatoria in the United States

References

Further reading

• Waverly Hills Sanatorium still source of local curiosity, Douglas Kleier, Jr., Louisville Cardinal Online, Oct. 21, 2003.
• Adams, Annmarie; Schwartzman, Kevin; Theodore, David (2008). "Collapse and Expand: Architecture and Tuberculosis Therapy in Montreal, 1909, 1933, 1954". Technology and Culture. 49 (4): 908–942.
  S2CID 7674281. INIST 20977990
  .
• Thomas Spees Carrington. Tuberculosis Hospital and Sanatorium Construction (New York, 1911).
• Maitland, Leslie (1989). "The Design of Tuberculosis Sanatoria in Late Nineteenth Century Canada". Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada. 14 (1): 5–13.
  hdl:10222/71570
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• Topp, Leslie (1 December 1997). "An Architecture for Modern Nerves: Josef Hoffmann's Purkersdorf Sanatorium". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 56 (4): 414–437.
  JSTOR 991312
  .
• Campbell, Margaret (1 October 2005). "What Tuberculosis did for Modernism: The Influence of a Curative Environment on Modernist Design and Architecture". Medical History. 49 (4): 463–488.
  PMID 16562331
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sanatoriums.

• "Sanatorium" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
• Bloomington's Kelso Sanitarium promised to cure all - Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois newspaper)