Some were medically supervised villages for scores of residents, with schools, hobbies and social events.Īnd it wouldn’t be America had there not been the quacks, showmen with snake-oil nostrums at the ready: garlic derivatives, copper treatments, patent remedies like “Tuberculene” - active ingredient, creosote. Some advertised themselves as “resorts” offering healthful outdoor living: croquet, tennis, naps in hammocks, sunshine and wholesome food that made TB sound like a vacation. Some were legitimate hospitals, using best-known practices at the time to make the best of an incurable disease. Junipero Serra, founder of the California missions and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Over the centuries, TB did in the composer Frederic Chopin the enslaved man Dred Scott, subject of a notorious Supreme Court decision St. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, consumption, as it was also called, killed more Americans than any other contagious disease. Tuberculosis was called “the captain of the men of death” and “the white plague,” for how it left its victims pale and listless.
Just think of all of the ballyhoo and bragging that Los Angeles’ 19th century promotional machine contrived: Come to Southern California! Come live in paradise! Perpetual sunshine, prosperity and health!Īnd come they did, by the tens of thousands, stepping off the westbound trains and into the salubrious California sunlight, all of them bringing their hopes, and some - a not-inconsiderable number - bringing something else: the tubercleĪnd soon, the boosters would learn that old, old lesson about being careful what you wish for: It might come true.
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