Ti)e (Idirondact) Cottage 5^nitariam. 



By E. L. TRUDEAU, M.D., Saranac Lake, N. Y. 



A RADICAL change in the views held by the medical profession as to the 

 nature and treatment of that widely prevalent class of diseases of the 

 respiratory organs known as consumption has taken place within the past 

 twenty years. Formerly consumption was looked upon as an inherited disease, and 

 one which was unfavorably influenced by exposure to cold and to trying atmospheric 

 conditions; the cough was considered the result of such exposures, and the invalid 

 was shielded from atmospheric changes and sent to warm climates in the hope of 

 preventing him from "catching cold." 



Now that we know that consumption is due to a germ which obtains lodgment in 

 the system only after its resistance has been enfeebled by an acquired or inherited 

 lessening of the natural resisting power of the tissues, the keynote of treatment is 

 invigoration; and cold, stimulating climates are preferred by many physicians to 

 warm ones. 



We have also learned that climate is only one of several elements which may be 

 utilized in the treatment of this disease, and that the principal factors which, in 

 addition to climate, contribute to the cure of consumptives are an open-air life, rest, 

 good food, and the regulation for months of the patient's daily habits of life as to 

 exercise, diet, etc. All these conditions are best obtained in an institution built and 

 carried on for this special purpose, and situated in a good climate. 



Many years ago circumstances placed me in a position where, from personal 

 experience with it, I realized the advantages of the Adirondack climate, and that the 

 best means of restoration were unattainable to working men or women. The long 

 time required to obtain a cure, or even an arrest of the disease by the climate and 

 open-air method, and the necessary expenses it entailed when added to the loss of 

 income incident to months of enforced idleness, seemed to put the practical application 

 of this method of cure beyond the reach of the majority of individuals who have to 

 earn their own living. An institution that would offer to working men and women, 

 at a moderate cost, this opportunity and a return to a life of usefulness, seemed an 

 urgent necessity, and induced me to attempt the establishment of such an institution 

 and put the modern sanitarium methods of treatment to a practical test in the 

 Adirondack climate. 



The Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium was the first institution in America to attempt 



the cure of incipient tuberculosis in persons of moderate means. In 1884, by personal 



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