Treatment

Before effective medicines were invented, TB was treated with bed rest, fresh air and good food. These things helped the body's defenses fight the disease. Many people went to live in a sanatorium. There, patients could get the care they needed without danger of infecting anyone else. People stayed in the sanatorium for as long as five years.

Sometimes people had operations. When a person had a part of the lung removed it was called a lobectomy. Some other operations were done to relax or collapse the infected lung so the body's defenses could work better against the disease. One of these operations was called a phrenectomy. Today, some doctors think that this type of operation was not very helpful. But in Newfoundland a great many people had them.

The first drug found to be effective against TB was called streptomycin. The Newfoundland Department of Health started using it in 1947. Although it had some side effects, such as hearing loss, it helped a great many people. Over the next few years more and better drugs were introduced.