WE think of the chronic lung ailment tuberculosis or consumption as something from great granddad’s era but it seems the United Kingdom still sees 5,000 cases a year.
Today the cure is a course of antibiotics but before the Second World War the cure was long, frequently cold and sometimes fatal.
Patients from Millom or Furness could be sent to isolated places in the Lake District, to High Carley, near Urswick, or to Meathop, near Grange.
The Meathop Sanitorium was one of the first in the country to offer the fresh air treatment which lasted for several months and could take years to have a significant effect.
In 1891 the Westmorland Consumption Sanatorium was opened as a convalescent home.
It was converted into a larger sanatorium at a cost of £1,200 and opened in 1900.
Unless you lived in Westmorland, it cost two guineas (£2.10) a week to stay there.
It was built on pretty strict segregation of the sexes.
The men’s section had space for 88 patients. A women’s block was built in 1909 with space for 59 patients.
As fresh air and local spring water were thought to be beneficial, the authorities did their best to let it in.
The walls had gaps in them and there were louvres in the roof.
Patients often woke in winter to find snow on the end of their beds.
In 1923 there was a complaint that girls were forced to saw trees in the snow.
Hard work of this type was not unusual.
As patients gradually recovered they were given increasingly arduous tasks – one of the toughest being to work on road crews.
The average stay was around six months and the sanatorium expected 40 deaths a year.
From 1948 to 1974 it was run by the regional hospital board based at Manchester.
It closed around 1992 with facilities transferred to Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal.
Much of the site is now a housing estate.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium which affects the lungs.
