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EXTREME MEASURES FOR CONSUMPTIVES.

From the "Boston Globe."

When the late Chief Justice Doe of the New Hampshire Supreme Court removed the windows of his house in winter to be sure of fresh air, a sympathetic shiver ran through the neighbors. Again, when it was first published to the world that invalids, suffering from tuberculosis, often awoke in the morning at the State institution at Rutland, Mass., to find their beds covered with the snow which had drifted in under the lifted sashes, many readers of the descriptive article froze in imagination.

Recently a sanatorium has been established among the hills of Plymouth County, Mass., for the cure of consumption and other affections of the lungs, which goes a step farther. There numerous patients have passed their days and nights in little dwellings which have only three side walls for shelter, the fourth wall in each instance having been left out of the plans of the architect purposely.

It is said to be the intention of the management to build a fence around two acres of land into which individuals will be turned naked. The claim is that the results will be as direct and fully as convincing as those received from the present outdoor

treatment.

The sanatorium occupies one of the old colonial estates of Plymouth County, with spacious grounds, about a dozen acres in extent, sloping gradually toward the south.

Near the ancient mansion are erected small buildings which may well be termed shacks. They are simply lean-to's, with the sides open, facing the south. They are of one and two stories in height, and constitute the resting places for the patients. day and night. In summer or winter, in rain or sunshine, persons inhabit these dwellings and seem to thrive on the heroic treatment. The shacks are about twelve feet square, and are fitted up after the manner of a common room. An iron bedstead, a bureau, stand, wardrobe, papers and books are to be found in each apartment, and the patient is surrounded by the ordinary arrangements of a hospital ward, but all out of doors.

A screen is suspended in front of each building, but, unless it rains, it is not pulled down. It is not intended to keep out the air. Every method possible to keep the air moving is utilized. There are windows in the wall sides of the little rooms, blind work over them, so that the air can be constantly changed if it

should rain, and at the rear are carefully and ingeniously constructed lattices.

Another feature of these unique and novel dwellings is the

COMPLETE ISOLATION OF THE PATIENTS.

One man in each twelve-foot room is the rule. The bed clothes are frequently moist with dew, but no bad results are felt. It simply means the drying of the bed clothes, and every quilt is placed in the rays of the sun as quickly as possible after the patient arises.

The old colonial mansion is where many of the patients are kept, and this is fitted up not unlike the leading sanatoria in this country and Germany. Every room has a southern exposure, but it differs from many institutions of this character, inasmuch as there is every facility for an open-air treatment and still be under a roof. Windows are thrown wide open and screened, little openings are cut in the roof to permit the free distribution of air, and as a matter of course the place is scrupulously clean, with not a carpet in the whole house.

The sanitary arrangements are as near perfection as possible, and when the old home was converted into a sanatorium the first change that the head physician ordered was the removal of the small windows in the cellar, and the replacing by larger ones. Air circulates as freely in the cellar as in the most open room in the house.

In addition to the apartments in the mansion, there are little wards constructed near at hand, and in close touch with the sanatorium for female patients. The same rules govern their daily life as in the open-air wards. Their treatment is nearly the same, and the physical culture lessons are given under the care of an expert. Hammocks are hung about the grounds, and, wrapped in warm clothing, some even with mittens and hats, the patients swing as if it were a summer day.

This open-air treatment may seem to many to be carried to excess, but when it is stated that the patients thrive on it, when they seem to enjoy it, and enter into the pleasures of life with a zest unknown for years, it certainly seems to possess a virtue hitherto not fully understood. They say that they rise from their beds feeling excellent, their appetite improved, and from the first night until they leave the sanatorium they do not have that tired feeling in the early morning hours.

The time that the patient is allowed to arise differs according to his or her condition. This is governed by the medical staff,

which follows every case with the greatest of care, and notes every change that occurs.

Stepping from the bathroom to the dressing-room, the patient is carefully attired and is soon out of doors. There is no dreading of drafts, and if it is chilly the patient does not mind it.

The blue-glass craze of a few years ago will be recalled. It served its purpose, as it drew the attention of the people to the beneficial effects of the sun's rays. Solar heat is recognized as a great remedial agent, and at this institution it plays a prominent part. A large, open space has been arranged at the top of the sanatorium leading from the upper tier of rooms, and is surrounded with a lattice work and strips of canvas. Cot beds are placed and patients are required to lie there for a certain length of time each day, with no clothing. As they turn on the cot and receive the rays direct from the sun every part of the body is reached, and from the sun bath it is but a step to the water bathroom.

The result of the sun bath is said to be felt directly by the patient. The cuticle of the whole body is as tanned and browned as the neck and arms of a summer yachtsman in Buzzard's Bay after a month's cruise. It is surprising what cold air the patient can stand after a treatment of this nature, and he seems immune from the effects of drafts or a chilly atmosphere.

The food generally conforms to the ordinary rules of dietetics. It is of a mixed character, containing representatives of the different classes of food stuff. It is digestible, appetizing and varied. Then, it is to a certain extent suited to the national individual taste and customs of the patient, and is directed by the results of experience, both of the patient and of the physician. A large amount of nitrogenous food is used, milk, butter, cream and eggs being lavishly supplied.

"We give them all they want," remarked the leading physician to the writer. "It is one of the rules that patients shall have everything within reason. It is part of the treatment. We find that the appetite calls for certain things, and we supply them as we do in health, if the food seems to agree with the patient. We have a large vegetable garden that we use freely throughout the entire

year.

"Medicine? There is very little used in our treatment, and the reason is readily understood. If we take a patient here and he or she receives benefit from the treatment it is apt to be attributed to the medicine rather than to the hygienic and open-air methods which we use, and they are not apt to follow those principles laid down here when they return to their homes.”

The hours for meals at this institution are as follows: Breakfast at 7.30 in the summer and 8 in the winter; dinner at 12.45 and supper at 6. In addition there are three lunches served, one at 10.30 A. M. and another at 4 P. M., while the last comes just before retiring. Milk, eggs or some specially prepared food is used at the lunch hours.

RULES ENFORCED.

There are rules adopted by the management of this institution which are rigidly enforced, and infractions are not tolerated. Between the hours of 1.30 and 4 in the afternoon a special quiet is required in the house. The patients are required to be ready for physical culture lessons and their other regular duties. The patients are required to be in their rooms at 8.15, and at 9 the lights are out. Another rule is that the patients are not allowed to visit each other in their bedrooms or enter the executive or private rooms. Patients are requested to keep their rooms in order and have few articles and ornaments to avoid the collection of dust. Permission is necessary to go farther than the village or to take an extended walk.

The rule against expectoration is more rigidly enforced than on the elevated in Boston. Sputa cups are supplied, and every possible safeguard is used. Under no circumstances are handkerchiefs or other articles of clothing permitted to receive sputa, and spitting upon the grounds of the sanatorium is absolutely forbidden.

In the past year many cases have been received at the sanatorium, and the treatment, it is asserted, has been beneficial in every instance. Of course damaged lung tissue can never be replaced, but the sanatorium is not designed for patients who are past cure. It is for the incipient cases of tuberculosis and lung trouble, which can be treated in such a manner as to put new vigor in the patient and send him home with a renewed interest in life.

"It is now nearly two years," said the physician in charge, "since I was called to see a young man whose family history was most remarkable. His father, brother and grandfather and two aunts died with chronic phthisis. He was suffering from a cough and dyspnoea and had a temperature of 100.5 degrees. The ordinary remedies were applied, and he continued to lose flesh. I took him to two specialists in Boston, and they said that my patient undoubtedly had tuberculosis.

"At that time I read a brochure by a Boston physician and he spoke of the benefits derived when he compelled his patients to remain out late in the evening in reclining chairs. I then urged my patient to sleep out of doors. For nine months he slept in the open air, with the exception of the stormy nights, and it was surprising to see the change. At the end of a month his temperature was normal. In four months he had gained twenty-two pounds, and the only medicine I gave was a little tincture of nux vomica. He has been perfectly well since and tips the scales at 147. The man has worked in a shoe factory nine hours per day since his treatment commenced.

"I might cite case after case similar to the one mentioned, cases where the open-air treatment has returned direct results. As a matter of experiment I have slept in a roof garden, and until one has tried it he cannot know how much more refreshed one feels after a night's rest out of doors.

"The cabalistic words 'dampness' and 'drafts' are of the past. and should not be considered for a moment. Many times patients have found their bed clothing and night clothes damp with the dew, and a summer rain has disturbed their restful slumbers, but with no harm, beyond the necessity of drying their clothes before another bedtime. I am of the opinion that if people could be taught to fear impure air and overheated rooms as they now dread a slight increase of moisture or a little air stirring in the room, tuberculosis would become as infrequent as smallpox.

W. C. GURNEY.

DESTRUCTION OF FUNGOID GROWTHS IN GERMANY.-ConsulGeneral Hughes, of Coburg, reports, December 13, 1901, as follows:

"Messrs. Rosenzweig & Baumann, of Cassel, manufacture at their color works a simple and effective agent for the destruction of fungoid growths, which they have put on the market under the name of 'mikrosol.' Professor Bigula, of the same city, has made a thorough examination into the action and effect of mikrosol, and recommends it as very efficient, both for the destruction and prevention of fungoid growths. Mikrosol is easily soluble in water. A 2 per cent. solution applied to wood by means of a brush will bring about the desired effect almost immediately. Mikrosol ought to be very useful on shipboard, especially in tropical and semi-tropical countries."

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