Two days ago I published a piece about Inge-Va in Perth. Excavations carried out from 1987-1994 recovered approximately 50,000 artifacts, 15,000 of which came out of an abandoned privy. This pit contained over 350 china objects and 280 glass objects. Items recovered from the privy include 10 different sets of tableware, 280 bottles, 71 wine glasses, 108 pharmaceutical and toiletry bottles, 16 chamber pots and seven toiletry sets. These items were discarded in an attempt to rid the house of tuberculosis. These objects provide a unique insight into how medical threats were addressed in the latter part of the 19th Century. An estimated 110,000 died each year from tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis was one of the leading causes of death in North America in the early twentieth century. Those infected with tuberculosis were isolated from society and placed in sanatoriums. These self-contained communities became known as “waiting room[s] for death.” The initial application into the sanatorium acknowledged the possibility of death. On the entry application, there was a question about permission to perform an autopsy. The autopsy acknowledged the possibility of death. The staff encountered death and had to maintain composure in the sanatorium environment. The staff was restricted from telling any patient about the death of another patient. The poor were left to suffer, and in many cases, to die. Their bodies must fight off the infection on their own.
Canada’s first TB sanatorium opened in Muskoka, Ontario in 1897. TB sufferers were sent to sanatoriums to be benefit from rest and fresh air and to avoid infecting others.
Author’s Note- In the 40s my mother had tuberculosis at the age of 14 and was sent to the Ste. Agathe Sanitorium in Quebec. Her parents were told she was never coming back so they consequently burned everything she had because of either fear of being in contact with the disease- or the fact they were told she was going to die.
She went on to live until 1963 when she died at the age of 34 from Lymphoma on the spine-which no one had any idea to what she had until my sister died of the same disease at 40 in the late 90s.
RELATED READING:
Smallpox in Carleton Place — Did You Know?
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
18 Nov 1878, Mon • Page 3
The last name was COUCH and his wife died 10 months earlier from TB
| Name: | Mrs John Couch |
|---|---|
| Gender: | Female |
| Age: | 62 |
| Birth Date: | abt 1815 |
| Birth Place: | Ireland |
| Death Date: | 16 Feb 1877 |
| Death Place: | Lanark, Ontario, Canada |
| Religion: | Church of England |
| Cause of Death: | Consumption |
lindaseccaspina 