For six decades, the Catawba Sanatorium treated patients ravaged by tuberculosis.
It would often begin as fatigue occasionally accompanied by night sweats and persistent coughing. Once blood appeared in the mouth from a cough, the diagnosis was certain — tuberculosis. Originally called consumption, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the US in the 19th and early 20th century, with an estimated death rate of 450 Americans per day.
With no known cure, patients literally wasted away. The skin went pale due to the impact of the disease on the blood and organs, causing tuberculosis to be known as the “white death.” Even if one survived the disease, debilitating symptoms would reoccur throughout one’s lifetime. Physicians initially tried bleedings and purgings with no success and eventually settled on a treatment regimen of bed rest, a healthy diet and fresh air. The latter was deemed critically important as tuberculosis commonly affected the lungs.
By the 1880s, researchers discovered that tuberculosis was not only contagious, as opposed to hereditary, but spread by coughing and sneezing. Urban centers, factories and the homes were Petri dishes, and the message to tuberculosis sufferers was clear — stay away! — giving rise to tuberculosis sanatoriums.
Virginia established its first tuberculosis sanatorium in 1908 at Catawba in Roanoke County by converting the Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs resort, purchasing the 30-room hotel, ten cottages and 600-acre campus for $19,000. Most of the cottages and farm buildings were in total disrepair…