The members of the Board of Public Health yesterday paid a visit of inspection to the b in storage for Consumptives at Greenvale.
They went by train to Essendon, whence they were driven to Greenvale, nine miles from the station.
The sanatorium is a compact settlement in gently undulating country.
Lately many improvements have been effected, making the accommodation much more extensive than it was when opened nearly four years ago.
At present there are between 80 and 9O patients, and numbers have been discharged as cured.
Fresh air day and night is the principal medicine it the sanatorium. There are several wards built of wood, but the timbre forms merely the skeleton of the structure.
The air blows freely through the constantly open and numerous doors and windows.
These yards are lined with fibre cement for coolness. One is called the Gresswell ward, another the Bent ward.
But most of the patients sleep in tents – roomy structures, open all round a few feet from the wooden flooring.
Most of them are made of canvas, but this is being replaced with fibro-cement, which is more durable.
Dr Holmes the medical superintendent, administers the laws of this community with all the rigour of a benevolent despot .
“We have to be as strict as under martial law here” explained Dr Holmes, the chairman of the board; “disobedience of orders entails dismissal” If a man expectorated on the ground instead of in the receptacle supplied to him, he is at once sent to the railway station.
I would like to deal more drastically with him because a line like that is in slow murderer. It is seldom that a consumptive dies of his first infection.
“If the roof of this ward fell in and killed all the members of the board.” continued Dr Holms, in perfectly matter-of-fact tones,
“consumptive germs would probably be found in the blood of six out of eight of us, which shows that people may have the germs without dying of the disease. But a man who dies of consumption very often dies because he has reinfected himself or has been infected by others after his primary infection. Therein lies the peril of the disobedience of the orders of the institution”
Patients roam about the extensive grounds all day long; some of them do a little light gardening, or take other gentle exercise.
This is with the object of converting into permanent “condition” the extra weight which they acquire under the treatment.
They are compelled in regulation to take in hours absolute rest before each meal, and half an hours rest after it.
During the rest hour they are not allowed to converse or to walk about, even in their tents.
There is no rule of diet, except that it shall be plain and wholesome with plenty or milk.
The patients are allowed a great deal of liberty, but they must not remain indoors.
The light domestic work performed by female patients, such as washing up is done in the open air.
At the time of visit a Church of England curate was holding a service on a verandah.
It is a rule that such services must be out of doors.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10692858
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