Evening star., 1901-09-21
TENT LIFE FOR CoNsUMpT1vEs.

An Experimenter's Notion of How q
Cure May Be Effected.
From the Boston Evening Transcript
AS soon as the weather will permit and
proper locations can be selected there will
be pitched near Boston the first of a num-
Der of camps for consumptives. This camp
(and each succeeding camp will be like it
Will consist Of ten piano-box tents. ar
ranged in a circle, with open-air fire
In the center, and surrounded by duck
wall eight feet high Each Of these tents
will be a consumptives home: consump-
tive will sleep there, even through the
coldest weather. with no other protection
than plenty Of felt blankets, felt sleeping
boots and a two-gallon jug Of hot water.
The tents are made of twelve-ounce
duck, are only seven feet high, with four
foot walls, boxed In around the bottom
foot from the ground. They will be lined
with weather paper. The flaps will open
toward the fire, the ten tents making
little circle about clean gravel court. In
the duck wall which will surround the
whole will be a single entrance. The peo-
pie who live there will wear one heavy suit
night and day. They will each Of them
take one quick, soapless bath week, and
will eat three good hearty meals day,
with coffee In the morning and hot choco-
late any time of the day or night. Their
bill Of fare will include milk, eggs, vege-
tables bread and butter and meat-chiehy
beef, mutton or pork, broiled on spits be-
fore the fire, or roasted In the embers, or
boiled down into soup.
This open life is expected to cure them
of their disease. The method is the result
Of experiments made last winter in tent
on Huntington avenue by a scientist whose
name has not yet been 'divtIlged. This gen.
tleman pitched his tent dHftng the coldest
usually cold. and stayed ip4 there until the
early spring, engrossedf in his experiments,
but finally seeing patisntsoand announcing
aat,, tina. ne W wanted as many conspmptives ni as
He wants the cOnsumPtiyes still His
theory has been pretty we'll tested now.
but ne still wants as many consumpttves
ton the better-to put them In his settle
ments.
1.-THE life there" hdl said this morning,
Quickly fortifies mans bodily powers;
toward ancestral or wild life; The skin.
nails and hair tougher apd thicken; pull
monary cstarrh stops behporrhages cease.
A civilized man loses his sensitiveness; his
emotions change. He becomes tnsensitive
and fearless All his energy goes to nutri-
tion; his intellectual centers are dormant.
All his powers are concentrated In building
and repair. He falls asleep at twilight and
wakes at dawn, ready to eat incidental
disaster affects him little: he changes from
hothouse plant to an oak. The fear and
panic customary to q crowd OF consump-
tives no longer affects him. and thus the
greatest danger OF hospitalism is avoided.
Baron Larry Nap, chief surgeon and adj
wiser, made this same observation In his
Egyptian and Russian campaigns; that In
cipient consumptives make the best SOL
diers. They have Spartan courage, and
them. A regiment OF consumptives would
be no mean enemy"
The camps are merely for the purpose OF
scientific investigation, and II patient
cannot AFFORD the expenses he will be taken
free. The camps will all be near the city,
where scientific physicians are within cail.