Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-15
WHITE PLAGUE VICTIMS.
Their Life in Tents in the Consump
tives' Colony, Blackwell's Island.

tives' Colony, Blackwell's Island.
From the New York Tribune.
Seven white tents pitched on a grassy
lawn in the lee Of gray stone, prison-1ike
hospital: within each tent on iron bedsteads
twelve small white beds made with hospital
precision; everywhere the reek of disinfect-
ants; without groups Of broken men in
gray cotton clothes and long, blue army
coats-men with pallid faces and hunted
look In their eyes, patient pathetic droop
to their mouths. A hollow cough bursts
from the chest of sixteen-year-old lad
with white cheeks. The coughing refrain
is caught up by skinny old man who is
reading a two-days-old paper spread across
MS Knees e Then chorus Of barking coughs
swells from the Threats of half score of
blue army coats, rocking in piazza chairs,
reclining in steamer chairs or lounging
about the corridors Of the hospital. Pres
entity 1T dies away to an isolated hack here
and there. Beyond the tents rises vast
gray building, barred at all the windows
On either side the East river lap-laps
against the green lip of the bank. This is
colony.
For the first time in the history of Man.
haitian the consumptives among the city's
charges are this year enjoying the benefits
or the open lair treatment. OF the 400 per-
sons suffering from tuberculosis, 100 will be
accommodated in the tent cottages when
the five or six new ones are put up Of
these Tse two , viii be given up to women.
v, me tents are about so by 10 feet IN d.
sets on solid framework Of wood and
brick piers, and Is eighteen inches above
the ground. The lower half of the walls Is
OF wood, like the wall of house, but the
upper half consists of a hinged frame that
can be propped up like an awning. Further
more, there Is q frame for breaking the
wind or keeping out the rain, which works
up ana down on pulley, the idea being to
provide the maximum of ventilation with
the minimum of exposure. In winter the
tents will be heated by means Of steam
pipes under the floor.
Bedtickfng in blue and white stripes COW
ers walls. roof and screens. "It is three
times as cheap as canvas and serves as
Well explains the young deputy superin-
tendent.
Only the stronger cases take the open-air
treatment in the tents: the weaker take
what Is known as the fresh-air treatment
In the hospital. Here everything is ex-
quisitely fresh and clean, and the central
,archltectural fact Is great hall. 300 feet
long. which runs through the building from
end to end, with small, cell-like rooms
without doors, for the patients on either
side. Here 1000 cubic feet of air are allowed
e each patient, against the LOCO cubic feet
the ordinary person enjoys in his house ana
the 6Oo cubic feet which the tenement house
law makes obligatory. In warm weather
the air In the tents Is from five to ten de-
grees lower than In the hospital. The big
windows of the rooms and the halls are
wide open, one notices. THAT ts obliea.
tory" says the superintendent 1--WE IN
slst on the windows being open all the
time, SO as to keep currents of living, pure
air circulating through the building but n
takes watching and scolding to accomplish
It," pii'a
These $50 tuberculosis patients come from
.ne East side and West Side, downtown
and uptown. Sixty per cent have no homes:
thlrty-flve per cent are absolutely desti.
tute Some have not even the name Of a
friend to give when they come to the island
often when they do give a name It proves
to be useless: One man said he had not
slept In a bed for five weeks before coming
to the island. About sixty per cent are
Hebrews, and only one or two negroes IN
spite of the fact that the death rate from
tuberculosis among negroes Is double that
among white people. No one is taken who
has not been In the country one year.
From forty to forty-f1ve is the avera ea
age of the men patients, which is consider
ably older than in the outside world where
from thirty to thirty-fv seems to be the
danger period. Thirty-two per cent admit
that consumption existed in the family and
drinkers"
Among the one hundred women nat,en+s
age older than the men, come. MANY Of
them, from the lower strata of society-the
lowest, indeed, to which a woman can fall
although among them is large proper
ton of domestic servants. The disease de-
velops rather differently In the cases OF
the women. too. "They give us a lot Of
trouble" is the comment of the superin-
tendent. After little the men come to
like the treatment-at all events, they take
kindly to living in tents and Cooperate
heartily with us In getting the most good
for themselves out of it. Few of the wo-
men do that. AS class they are far hard
err to deal with. less tractable and mora
obstinate and ignorant than the men.
suppose man has learned to keep himself
flexible. while women, through generations
of inherited instinct, have become attached
to the home and hearth idea-that is the
secret Of It, Woman Is the conserya tor
not the experimenter. Of the race"