Today we value the open air to diminish infection, but for tuberculosis open air spaces provided the primary treatment.
October 11, 1918, Democratic Watchman, page 8
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audio of newspaper selection
Canvas tents had served as common spaces for treatment of tuberculosis and doctors continued to utilize them during the epidemic.
December 13, 1918, Democratic Watchman, page 6
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Reports that the flu might lead to additional cases of tuberculosis only contributed to long-standing alarm.
“Rush Hospital, Country Branch, Malvern, Pa.”
Thomas Spees Carrington, Tuberculosis Hospital and Sanatorium Construction, 1911
audio of text
Some open-air sanatoriums used informal cabin-like structures.
Further readings on tuberculosis and architecture
X-Ray Architecture
Beatriz Colomina
Glass Architecture by Paul Scheerbart and Alpine Architecture by Bruno Taut
edited by Dennis Sharp
Disease, Class and Social Change: Tuberculosis in Folkestone and Sandgate, 1880-1930
Marc Arnold
Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion: A History of Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles
Emily K. Abel
Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis in American Culture Since 1870
Katherine Ott
Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938
Barbara Bates