A patient room at the Desert Sanatorium, now the Tucson Medical Center campus.
We’re defining Tucson in 100 objects. The daily series began April 20. Follow along at: azstarnet.com/100objects
Tucson Medical Center and the veterans hospital on the city’s south side both began their lives as sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis.
Tucson seemed to have mixed feelings about the influx of TB sufferers, who began flocking to town in the late 19th century for “heliotherapy,” in a belief that the sun and dry desert air were thought to be curative.
In the early decades of the 20th century, tourism advocates touted the salubrious effects of our climate, promoting the notion that the region’s natives did not suffer from tuberculosis.
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Some residents, meanwhile, worried about contagion and decried the influx of “lungers.”
Tent cities grew on the city’s periphery, and over time were replaced by public and private sanatoria.
Between 1920 and 1930, more than 40 sanatoria were in operation in Tucson, according to Jennifer Levstik, who documented “health-seeker” architecture in Tucson in an application to the National Register of Historic Places.
Development of vaccines and better drug treatment and understanding of the disease, beginning in the 1950s, slowly eased the need for the facilities.
Many remain in use today, as offices, clinics, apartment houses and private homes.
