#WOMAN WHO LIVED ON SUN AND AIR DOC SERIES#
#WOMAN WHO LIVED ON SUN AND AIR DOC FREE#

TB patients were stigmatized in newspaper articles and public life. Panorama view of Denver, Colorado, in 1898. (Today, the hospital is a leading research and treatment facility for lung-related ailments.)

#WOMAN WHO LIVED ON SUN AND AIR DOC FREE#

In Denver, Francis Weisbart Jacobs founded an entire hospital, the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives, to provide free treatment for those patients. Soon, Colorado had a homelessness problem brought on by desperate patients who bought one-way tickets even though they were unable to pay for treatment. Not everyone could afford these plush resorts, though, and some sanatoriums were little more than a collection of tents. The more opulent tuberculosis facilities even bred their own elite social scenes and attracted famous patients from all over the world. At the Hygiene House in the town of Hygiene-named after its resort-they sipped mineral water (thought to have curative properties), ate rare plants and sat outside for 10 hours a day, even during blizzards. The health hotels featured large porches on which wealthy guests could take in sun, breathe fresh air and enjoy mountain views. BoulderвЂ™s most prominent sanitarium allowed вЂњguestsвЂќ to relax with health spa-like diets, view intricate oil paintings and listen to a live orchestra. They had names like Montcalm, Sunnyrest and Cragmor. These resort-like health spas were places to relax, rest and often die. Tuberculosis huts at the Nordach Sanatorium in Austin Bluffs, Colorado. Colorado Springs and Boulder soon followed suit, and entire cities began to spring up around TB treatment facilities. DenverвЂ™s first facility for tubercular patients was built in 1860, just two years afterВ the city was founded. But at the time, doctors believed the contagious disease to be hereditary, and thought it was transmitted through the air instead of through physical contact.Д«eginning in the 1860s, ill people began pouring into the future state to take the fresh air cure. Although their beliefs about TB were not entirely medically sound, they were kind of right in this regard: Fresh air does prevent TB from spreading, and the high altitude stops TB bacteria from spreading as rapidly through the lungs. Physicians in the 19th and 20th centuries believed that fresh air, high altitudes and abundant sunshine could cure all kinds of ailments, and Colorado had plenty of all three. But while its rudimentary towns and camps were rife with drunkenness, gambling, prostitution and crime, the negatives of ColoradoвЂ™s unsavory reputation as an uncivilized, crude backwater were outweighed by the positives of its climate.

#WOMAN WHO LIVED ON SUN AND AIR DOC SERIES#

Previously, Colorado had been known as a haven for Wild West criminals and miners, thanks to a series of gold and silver rushes that made it an attractive destination for fortune hunters.

(Today, only three people per 100,000 suffers from TB in the United States.) Also known as consumption at the time, tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium that, when breathed in, can cause weakness, chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath and other symptoms.

Woman who lived on sun and air doc