National Jewish Health - Treatment of Tuberculosis

Treatment of Tuberculosis

It was obvious that the Denver community at large was not sympathetic to the plight of needy TB sufferers, and many argued that "we can’t blacken the name of the city" by making it a TB refuge. Fortunately, a woman named Frances Wisebart Jacobs recognized the need for a TB hospital. After joining forces with a young rabbi, William Sterne Friedman, the two raised enough money to buy some land and erect a building, and the laying of the hospital’s cornerstone on October 9, 1892 drew huge crowds. The original hospital was completed in 1893 and was to be named the Francis Wisebart Jacobs Hospital after its founder. Unfortunately, due to the combination of the "Silver Crisis of 1893" and a national depression, the hospital did not open and it sat vacant for six years until William Sterne Friedman approached B'nai B'rith, a national Jewish organization, and persuaded them to raise the required operating funds on an annual basis. When the hospital opened on December 10, 1899, it had a new name; National Jewish Hospital for Treatment of Consumptives (consumption is an old name for TB that describes how the highly contagious illness wastes away or consumes its victims). B'nai B'rith continued to support the hospital until the early 1950s.

From its inception, National Jewish has been a non-sectarian institution. As emphasized at the ground-breaking for the hospital on October 9, 1892, it was noted that "….As pain knows no creed, so is this building the prototype of the grand idea of Judaism, which casts aside no stranger no matter of what race or blood. We consecrate this structure to humanity, to our suffering fellowman, regardless of creed." In fact, the first patient to enter the hospital, on December 11, 1899, was a Protestant Swedish woman from Minnesota. To reflect its openness to the impoverished of every background, National Jewish adopted the motto:

"None may enter who can pay -- none can pay who enter"

The hospital opened with a capacity of 60 patients with the goal of treating 150 patients a year. In the beginning, a 6-month limit on patient stays was imposed and only patients in the early stages of TB were to be accepted. In reality, however, many chronic sufferers were admitted and, after a few months, the 6-month limit was lifted. Treatment of TB at National Jewish was in line with other turn-of-the-20th-century TB sanatoria: plenty of fresh air, lots of food, moderate exercise, and close scrutiny of every aspect of patients' lives. The inhabitants of National Jewish could expect to sleep outside, or with their heads outside, every night, and were all but gorged with food. For example, in 1911, the annual report records that $3,631 was spent on eggs (roughly $70,000 today) for just 120 patients.