Description
Tuberculosis, often referred to as consumption, the White Plague, or simply TB, used to be the number-one killer in the US within the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many physicians of the era advised their patients to chase the cure for tuberculosis within the Southwest, where the region’s clean, dry, fresh air, high altitude, and sunshine offered relief for most and recovery for some. New Mexico, referred to as the “well country,” used to be particularly eager to promote itself as a mecca for lungers with the coming of the railroad to the territory in 1880 and the creation of many new hospitals, referred to as sanitariums or sanatoriums (“sans”), which specialized within the remedy of TB. It is a brief history of New Mexico’s sans, their patients, and the doctors, nurses, and personnel who served them all the way through the golden age of the TB industry, from the turn of the 20th century to the eve of World War II.