Nineteenth century respitory illnesses and ailments were on the rise in the United States. Known as the "white plauge", this disease was responsible for 12% of all the deaths in the country. Tuberculosis was one them. Since there was no immediate cure for the disease, individuals afflicted were recommended to find a hot dry climate. Cold wet climates were perceived to be the generator of disease and that those that could not withstand its effects must move west, to places like Arizona. The state proved to be a prime place. It was the reason individuals like the gunslinger Doc Holliday moved to Arizona. Many future governors and other prominent individuals originally arrived in Arizona to relieve their ailments such as Governors A.P.K Safford, Richard McCormick, Joseph Kibbey, Richard E. Sloan, Louis C. Hughes, and the father of Paul Fannin.
New York Times Owner/Editor Whitelaw Reid and Harold Bell Wright helped to spread the healing qualities of Arizona. The Arizona Desert Inn Sanitorium was created to aid wealthy healthseekers. However, the were not the same facilities for the poor who ventured to Arizona, usually spending everything they had just to get there. These individuals settled in cities such as Sunnyslope in Phoenix and in Tentville in Tucson. They did not have the money for sanitary conditions and the towns turned into unsanitary slums. Many who came here were not wealthy individuals and ended up living in tent cities, "A sizable number of destitute invalids lived in isolated tent cities or hired out as ranch hands, an even larger number lived in marginal quarters in towns where they could find enough part-time work to tide them over until improved health would permit more strenuous pursuits."(P 169) Eventually, St. Joseph's in Phoenix and St. Mary's in Tucson began to treat tuberculosis patients in the 1880s.
Websites
Southwestern Wonderland: A University of Arizona
Resource
http://www.library.arizona.edu/swwonderland/health.html
Article from Arizona Daily Star about Healthseekers
Sanitarium of the Southwest Seeking a Cure
in The Arizona Sunshine by W. Lane Rogers
The Catalina Foothills Community, The Desert
Leaf, January 1992.
http://www.azstarnet.com/~comstck/artl40.htm
Ointment of Love: Oliver E Comstock and Tucson's Tent City. Article
from Arizona Daily Star about Tucson healthseekers.
http://www.azstarnet.com/~comstck/comhst08.htm
Healthseekers in the Southwest, 1817-1900 by
Billy Jones
RA
804.J6
Tuberculosis in Arizona
CM MSM-330
Arizona Anti-Tuberculosis Association Papers
CM MSM-169
