By Fighting One of the World’s Most Deadly Diseases
Tuberculosis is an airborne disease, and even today, it’s extremely deadly. While TB is a rare occurrence today, it reached epidemic levels among urban populations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In that era, tuberculosis patients were quarantined in sanatoriums, creating an environment full of the deadly bacteria. In America, there were over 600 tuberculosis sanatoriums until as recently as 1950.
Many nurses braved the risks of infection to treat these tuberculosis patients with what remedies were available at the time. Tuberculosis is airborne, so anyone treating these populations was at risk of contracting it. Plus, there was no known cure at the time. Nursing staff members often lived on the grounds of the sanatoriums, putting them at even more risk of contraction.
The superintendent of Wallum Lake, an East Coast sanatorium, instructed his nursing staff to have regular hours, eat regular meals, and get plenty of rest. Those were the only tactics for TB management and prevention. Despite these precautions, many nurses did contract the disease and became sick. Many of them died.
These brave nurses, many of them nameless and unremembered, took the risk of contracting tuberculosis themselves in order to provide medical care to infected patients. Many of them died in the process.
Page 3: A Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
