‘Design for Living’: Life Inside the Tuberculosis Sanatorium

Sanatoria were the institutional answer to tuberculosis from the end of the 19th century until the successful outpatient use of anti-tuberculosis drugs in the 20th century, but what was life like inside?

“It took me the whole summer to learn that you do not dispose of eight and a half months in a sanatorium just by leaving the grounds. I had had to struggle and bleed to adjust to sanatorium routine and I had to struggle and bleed to adjust back to normal living” wrote the author Betty MacDonald in 1938. Sanatoria were the institutional answer to tuberculosis from the end of the 19th century until the successful outpatient use of anti-tuberculosis drugs in the 20th century, but what was life like inside? And did it work?

Dr Helen Bynum is the author of Spitting Blood: the history of tuberculosis. She works as a freelance writer based in Suffolk and London.

Admission price for all talks £8.00 (Members of the Florence Nightingale Museum FREE) and includes a glass of wine and a chance to view the museum. To book, please contact Stephanie Tyler on stephanie@florence-nightingale.co.uk or 020 7620 0374.

This lecture is part of our current exhibition The Kiss of Light: Nursing and Light Therapy in 20th-century Britain, generously funded by the Wellcome Trust.

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