The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-03-28
DEATH VALLEY IS
A HEALTH RESORT
Claimed that Land of Little
Rain Contains Gases Fa-
tai to tuberculosis.

Los Angeles. March 2S.-Dcath
Valley as a place for curing tuberculo-
sis is lauded by J. w. Bledsoe, pros
pector, miner. desert photographer
and for forty years a denizon of the
land OF little rain. Because that great
sink is in itself "A natural reservoir
Of gas. which, he declares, is fatal
10 tuberculosis. consumption can
quickly be cured by merely living
there for few months. he says.
In six months 1t cured him. he as
serts. after he had been given up to
die. After receiving an ultimatum
from physicians he went into Death
Valley country, stayed there half a
year and came out with lungs as good
as any.
Blcdsoc is past fifty. but does not
look, like an invalid. His griZzled
face. wcathcrcd to "a nut brown by
wind and sun and sand. is furrowed
by hardship and exposure. but scarce
ly suggests the ravages OF disease.
Death Valley. hemmed in on all
sides by mountains. Bledsoc says, is
nothing ut all but "a basin partly filled
with diluted carbonic acid gas. the
carbon dioXide popularity known TO
miners as choke damp. The gas is
two and half times as heavy as air.
the result being that unless is settles
into low places exactly as heavy H.
guilds seek the bottom of tumbler.
The bottom of the great sink accord
ing TO Bledsoe. is partly filled with
that soffocating gas.
This he considers proved by the
fact that no animals who live near
the ground can survive in Death Val
ley I'm the Summer. Burros, though
tougher and harder than horses. suf-
fer more than they because of their
smaller stature. Dogs die almost at
once: cats taken into the valley are
observed to climb to heights. A man
on foot, says Bledsoe from experience,
feels the effect of the gas much more
quickly than one mounted for like
reasons.
The rest OF the old desert mans
argument, which he claims to have
conclusively proved from his own eX-
perience. Is that air such as found in
Death Valley is an impossible medium
for the life of the microscopic organ
isms to the action OF which consump-
ton Is due. The results which he
says have been effected in his own
case nc believes will be more quickly
accomplished when the treatment is
systematically and intelligently treat
cd
His plan calls for the erection of q
large sanitorium building at some con-
venient point near the railway and
readily accessible from the valley. This
Nc would make headquarters for a
series OF cheap but substantial and
well ventilated shacks to be built in
the sink itself, for the occupancy of
the patients.
lie thinks the best effects would
be obtained by graduation Of the
treatmcnt--that is. in not less than
three stages of intensity. Some OF
the shacks, for example. should be
constructed nearly on the level of the
surrounding territory, so that there
tho carbonic Acid gas schould be con-
sidcrably diluted. The next should
he constructed, say, on the lower
slopes of the Panamints, about one
hundred feet below the sea level. The
last. where the full effect of the gas
would be felt, should be built in the
bottom Of the sink. mere than three
hundred feet below the level of the
sea,