Florence Mulhern

The Last Lambs on the Mountain Florence Mulhern

The Adirondack Mountains at Saranac Lake, New York, were considered the ideal climate to cure Tuberculosis. The cold was beneficial and the pine-scented air that distinguished the region was believed to have special therapeutic value. The sick lay out on porches in patient hope or resigned despair and even those who were cured continued the practice, convinced it had delivered them and would prevent a relapse. The houses in town were a testimony to this belief, rows of porches across their fronts, each holding a bed. At the sanatorium, the sick were urged onto their porches, taught to lie prone and let the pure air help heal the lesions in their lungs. No image was more evocative than a bed on a porch. The author spent two years at Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake and was one of the last patients to undergo the lengthy treatment believed at that time to be the only way to cure Tuberculosis, the miracle drug, Isoniazid. For some the cure came too late. No longer was tuberculosis communicable; no longer were families and loved ones torn apart, but, for many the damage had already been done.