FORESTS AS SITES FOR SANATORIA 21 
those which abound in pitch and balsam, are most beneficial 
to consumptives or to those who do not gather strength 
after a long illness; and they are of more value than a 
voyage to Egypt.” Most of the descriptions in text-books (4) 
of sanatoria on the continent, and even in the British 
Isles, lay stress on the woodland or forest nature of the 
situation. In the United States Dr. A. L. Loomis of New 
York was one of the first to send tuberculous patients 
systematically to the Adirondack Forest, that they might 
have the benefit of the purest and most invigorating air (5). 
The main features of the open-air treatment of phthisis, 
perhaps insisted on earliest by Dr. Geo. Bodington of Sutton 
Coldfield, Warwickshire, in 1840, and by Dr. Henry 
MacCormac of Belfast in 1856, were first systematised at 
the Nordrach Colonie Sanatorium, which, founded originally 
by Dr. Walther, was acquired by the Baden Insurance 
Company in 1908. “It is a hamlet, not an institution, 
in a sheltered valley surrounded by pine-clad heights in 
the midst of the Black Forest.” The Nordrach treatment 
consists in an absolutely open-air life, day and night, and 
in sunshine, fog, and rain; abundant diet; rest before 
meals; and exercise regulated by the bodily temperature. 
Graduated labour, at ordinary kinds of outdoor work, seems 
to be the best form of exercise (6), and has been introduced 
at the Brompton Hospital Sanatorium at Frimley. In pine 
forests these conditions are readily satisfied, as patients get 
pure air and an attractive milieu for exercise, while useful 
and interesting forestry work can be carried on in the 
winter. Intense cold, fogs, etc., do not interfere with the 
open-air treatment ; but this could not be carried on without 
danger in windy places. 
Walther believed in the paramount importance of purity 
of air, and associated with it paucity of population, which 
is the rule in forest districts. Where pine trees abound, 
the soil is usually dry and is often sandy. A treeless site 
is a great disadvantage for a sanatorium; but the trees 
must not be crowded around the building so as to interfere 
with ventilation. 
