History of Public Health Hospitals

The panel displays include early 20th century pictures of Tewksbury Hospital and the patients treated here. Some of these pictures reflect Massachusetts' long history of care for patients with lung diseases, especially tuberculosis. Photos show tuberculosis wards before the introduction of antibiotic therapy when the only generally recognized way to treat TB was rest, good food, and lots of fresh air. Until the 1920's it was not unusual for tuberculosis patients to live out their lives at home with their families. However, when it was discovered that tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was then called) was caused by a bacterium and could be transmitted by contact with infected people, all patients were required to be isolated in institutions--either public or private--until they were either cured or they died. Most of the large sanitoria of that era are now closed or have been converted to other uses after it was discovered in the late 1940's that patients could be successfully treated as outpatients with antibiotics such as streptomycin and isoniazid. In recent years the numbers of persons infected with tuberculosis have been on the rise, particularly those infected with strains of the bacteria which are resistant to the more common antibiotic treatments.