Arequipa Sanatorium - Life in California's Lung Resort for Women (Paperback)

As San Francisco recovered from the devastating earthquake and fire of 1906, dust and ash filled the city's stuffy factories, stores, and classrooms. Dr. Philip King Brown noticed rising tuberculosis rates among the women who worked there, and he knew there were few places where they could get affordable treatment. In 1911, with the help of wealthy society women and his wife, Helen, a protege of philanthropist Phoebe Apperson Hearst, Brown opened the Arequipa Sanatorium in Marin County. Together, Brown and his all-female staff gave new life to hundreds of working-class women suffering from tuberculosis in early-twentieth-century California. Until streptomycin was discovered in the 1940s, tubercular patients had few treatment options other than to take a rest cure at a sanatorium and endure its painful medical interventions. For the working class and minorities, especially women, the options were even fewer. Unlike most other medical facilities of the time, Arequipa treated primarily working-class women and provided the same treatment to all, including Asian American and African American women, despite the virulent racism of the time. Author Lynn Downey's own grandmother was given a terminal tuberculosis diagnosis in 1927, but after treatment at Arequipa, she lived to be 102 years old. Arequipa gave female doctors a place to practice, female nurses and social workers a place to train, and white society women a noble philanthropic mission. Although Arequipa was founded by a male doctor and later administered by his son, the sanatorium's mission was truly about the women who worked and recovered there, and it was they who kept it going. Based on sanatorium records Downey herself helped to preserve and interviews she conducted with former patients and others associated with Arequipa, Downey tells a vivid story of the sanatorium and its cure that Brown and his talented team of Progressive women made available and possible for hundreds of working-class patients.

General

Imprint:	University of Oklahoma Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	August 2019
Authors:	Lynn Downey
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 17mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	302
ISBN-13:	978-0-8061-6395-6
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Medicine > General issues > Health systems & services > General Books > Health, Home & Family > Family & health > Popular medicine > General Books > Health, Home & Family > Family & health > Coping with personal problems > Coping with illness Books > History > American history > General Promotions
LSN:	0-8061-6395-X
Barcode:	9780806163956

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!