The White Death Essay

The White Death

During the early 1900’s there was a deadly disease outbreak that had no cure. They called it “white death.” The scientific term was tuberculosis. The disease was terribly contagious and had claimed several lives so far. In 1900 Louisville, Kentucky had one of the highest death rates from this horrible disease. Due to the high numbers of people that were infected with this disease, the state of Kentucky built a special hospital that would specialize in the treatment of tuberculosis. The hospital was small and not enough rooms to house all the people were becoming ill. Eventually a bigger hospital was built. It was a state of the art hospital for our time. Big enough to hold and treat 400 patients.

Her name was Evelyn, she was a pretty petit woman in her late thirties. She asked where we had come from and we each told her and then she asked why? Why did we want to come to the “white death” hospital on the hill? We never got a chance to response. She began telling us that she started here years ago in the old hospital that could only hold forty patients. She told of the treatments that they would use to try to cure them. It was believed that sunlight and fresh air would help. So when the hospital was rebuilt they included sunrooms. Which were just large hallways that were wide enough to wheel patient’s beds into and place them in front of big open windows. Patients were kept out there most of the time, even in winter. Evelyn paused, and then sighed

I started to drift off into sleep exhausted and over whelmed from the events of the day. Going over and over in my head if I made the right decision in coming to work here. I was startled awake by what seemed to be a loud alarm. Apparently our alarm clock that sounded like an air raid siren. I stood up and felt horrible. It did not even feel like I even slept. We got dressed and went to the cafeteria to eat breakfast and get started on another busy and hectic day.

Now years have passed. Scientists finally discovered a cure for the dreaded tuberculosis disease, and now the doors of Waverly Hills Hospital are closing. So many patients have died in this hospital. A lot of would walk through the doors of the hospital as families and leave through the body chute one by one. Many of the staff members left in the same way. Doctors and nurses that gave their lives to helping others in