704 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 



BREHMER'S MOTTO. 



Brehmer, the founder of the modern sanatorium treatment in 

 Germany, wrote a thesis for his degree under the title " Tuberculosis, 

 in stadiis primis semper curahilisJ^ In the early stages consumption 

 is always a curable disease. This motto might well be inscribed upon 

 the gates of a modern sanatorium. 



It is a fact which everyone should know. Because people do not 

 know it the majority of consumptives come for treatment when it is 

 too late. It is no discovery of modern days, for even Hippocrates, 2,000 

 years ago, knew that early consumption could be cured, and he wrote : 

 " If the patient be treated from the beginning he will get well." Hippo- 

 crates taught that fresh air, rest, and regulated exercise would cure 

 these early cases. 



A plentiful supply of milk, rest, and carefully planned exercise, 

 and sometimes a sea voyage, were prescribed for consumptives by 

 Aretseus 250 years before Christ. 



Sunlight and the pleasant air of pine forests were advised by Pliny 

 the elder 23 years before Christ. 



A residence in the pure air at high altitudes was Galen's prescrip- 

 tion about 200 years after Christ. 



The famous Arabic physician, Avicenna, at the beginning of the 

 eleventh century A.D., also sent his patients into the mountains. 



Willis, in the seventh century, sent his patients to the Riviera. 



Lsennec (1781-1826), a physician of great experience in chest 

 diseases and the inventor of the stethoscope, had the misfortune to 

 inoculate himself accidently when performing an autopsy on a tuber- 

 cular subject. He died from consumption. Before his death he caused 

 sea air to be artificially produced in his bedroom. 



SANATORIA. 



It was in England, in the year 18-39, that the first sanatorium for 

 the systematic and scientific treatment of consumptives was founded 

 by Dr. George Bodington, of Sutton Coldfield. Dr. Bodington did 

 not receive the proper acknowledgment which his excellent work 

 merited, and when Brehmer founded his famous sanatorium in Gobers- 

 dorf Bodington was forgotten. To-day there are in the world no less 

 than 560 sanatoria for the treatment of consumption. 



From my own personal experience I am convinced that the best 

 chances of recovery from consumption are afforded by sanatorium 

 treatment, and that no other form of treatment, at home or elsewhere, 

 can be compared with it. At a ivcU-managed sanntorium 75 out of 

 every 100 cases who have entered while they are in the earliest stage of 

 consumption leave without any vestige of disease, and are in every sense 

 sound and well. 



Every year some thousands of people are being discharged from 

 sanatoria who have been cured of consumption. Sanatoria deserve 

 all the support they get, and many of them would be able to do mucli 

 more good if they were more liberally supported by the public. A 

 system of treatment which aims at curing a disease by increasing the 



