Licking County Tuberculosis Sanatorium


Record of the Month!

April Monthly Feature Update: Game Design Challenge deadline extended to June 5! The challenge rules remain the same. Please send all entries to archives@lcounty.com with the subject line Activity Challenge Attn: M Shield, and don’t forget to include your name in the email. Winners will be announced the second week of June.



For the month of May we are featuring our digital exhibit on the history of the Licking County Tuberculosis Sanatorium and its impact. The link to the exhibit is below:
https://apps.lcounty.com/records-and-archives/exhibits/

The exhibit was created by Mary McKinley in 2018, using a range of materials from our collection, as well as from the Licking County Health Department, who took over Tuberculosis Sanatorium building after it closed. The exhibit examines what life was like in Licking County for those affected by Tuberculosis (TB) before and after the sanatorium was built and the compelling story of how women and other Licking County community members banded together to build the facility.

In an effort to understand the current Covid-19 pandemic and predict how the situation could develop, many have been looking to pandemics of the past, specifically the 1918 Flu Pandemic. However, the 1918 Flu was not the only infectious disease that the world was fighting during that time period. Moreover, the fight against Tuberculosis had been raging for thousands of years. There is archaeological evidence for TB dating back 9,000 years ago, and the earliest written accounts of the disease date to 3,300 years in India and 2,300 years in China. It is estimated that TB may have been around as long as 3 million years, since the disease is not specific to humans.

According to the CDC, from 1600 to 1800 a quarter of all deaths across Europe were caused by TB, with similar numbers occurring in the United States. During the early 20th Century, before the discovery of antibiotics, the treatment for TB consisted of fresh air, sunlight, rest, and good food. Facilities that could provide care for TB patients started popping up across the United States, including the Licking County Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

Meanwhile, health care institutions and other organizations, such as the Red Cross, worked tirelessly to educate the public as to what they could do to stem the transmission of TB and other infectious diseases. One poster featured in our exhibit warns against “careless” coughing, sneezing, and spitting, and show an illustration of a man coughing into a handkerchief. Many of the social distancing guidelines that were enacted to fight Tuberculosis and the 1918 Flu are being used to fight Covid-19 today, due to their success in saving lives and stemming transmission.     

If you have questions, please feel to call us at 740-670-5121 or email us at archives@lcounty.com .

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