The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-10

Cicago Record Herald.
 How would you have enjoyed swing ing all day in hammock or louns- ing in a reclining chair on hlgn Di1n Thanksgiving day with the tuty-mue. snow-laden blast cutting through your clothing and biting your nose and ear tins? Granted that you have pertect health. how would you like itE Anu II consumption had ravaged your systeI" tiu YOU were looked upon as an in- valid in critical state. then no" would the prospect appear to you
 Yet this is the way consumptiVes snent the national holiday and they en- joyed it. Camped in small canvas tents on the picturesque bluffs overlooklns the Illinois River at, Ottawa, these fifty afflicted ones are fightlhs lui health with fresh air and proper hutrl- tion as their only weapons ne inn1, oHn,p is known as the Ottawa tent colony and represents the first systematic ana comprehensive attempt ever made m the Mississippi Valley to cure the dread disease, tuberculosis, the plague that each year claims 160,000 victims in the United States. 5000 in Illinois and $500 in Chicago:
 
 Here men and women that in the common conditions of life would De considered of extreme frailty live Tn tents in which they are allowed heat hut twice a day, on retiring ana aris. ing. regardless of whether the thsr- naometer registers 20 degrees above zero or 20 degrees below. Last win %e. with the mercury below even that noint the patients occupied their tents and gained in strength Den cate women that at home would snna- der at the slightest draugnt or coio ar, throxvn hack, only a thin plank floor hstween them and the frozen ground. and onIy the thin cloth of the tent walls to shield them from the cutting blasts of winter. They have gone back 70 nature and are reaping their reward ny seeing the merciless raVages oA l.e -cost dreaded disease known to man checked.
 The establishing of the ottawa tenI colony was the outgrowth or the con. yiction in the minds of specialists m tuberculosis that climate had nothIns to do with the cure of the disease r1r. I. w. Petit, poineer in the mod- ern treatment of consumption, and' S,ttb pr. P. H. Butterfield. in charge of the Ottawa colony, helo 1irmiy to the belief that consumption could pc r,ired as effectively and as quickly m Illinois climate as in southern Califor- .Ia Nav Mexico or any other of the climates that for many years nave haen considered the only ones in which tubercuIosis could be treated success. fully. Dr. Petit investigated the T:nronean and American sanitoria for the treatment of consumption. and found, among other things. that in the Massachusetts State Hospital for con Gumptives, in Rutland, with its rigor- ous winters, modern elevation or 1.050 feet, greater rainfall and pre- valance of cloudy days, there was greater proportion of recoveries than sn the United States Army Sanatorium at Fort Bayard. New Mexico, with it's mild climate, dry air, constant sun shine and 5000 feet elevation. Moist ure in the air. for generations consid- cred deadly in tubercular cases. was shown not to be so injurious as sup posed.
 The Ottawa tent colony occupies on" of the most beautiful sites in Illinois. It is a mile and half out from the fsisiuess center of Ottawa. The ground owned by the institute con- sists of twelve acres, but twenty-five acres adjoining are controlled by it. ms land lies along the bank of the