ABOUT

Unfortunately, the climate and water/land geography qualities of Louisville , Kentucky, offered the perfect conditions to grow the TB bacteria, which resulted in whole families coming down with this very contagious disease, which was in its heyday from 1910-1936, though it was still a threat up until the discovery of the vital antibiotic which became a formidable foe and defeated TB.

This insidious disease, named the “white plague” eventually destroyed the lungs, slowly suffocating people who caught the TB bug. TB also sometimes infected bones, the brain, the eyes and larynx.

In 1910, a small 140 bed Waverly Hills Sanitarium was opened outside of Louisville on an isolated hilly area, where fresh air blew freely, and a caring staff tried their best to nurse the afflicted back to health