Learn how tuberculosis has been treated in Essex County. The program will feature the newly-restored documentary film \u201cEssex Mountain County Sanatorium,\u201d showing treatment that was given to patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis in the years before antibiotics, and talks by Lee Reichman, M.D., M.P.H., the founding director of the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute, and Bob Vietrogoski, special collections librarian at the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences at Rutgers University. Dr. Reichman will speak about the past, present, and future of TB elimination. In 2014, TB resulted in the 1.5 million deaths worldwide. Mr. Vietrogoski will speak about the preventorium movement in New Jersey, institutions for patients who did not have an active form of tuberculosis. Excerpts from the 53-minute silent documentary film \u201cEssex Mountain County Sanatorium\u201d will be shown with musical accompaniment by Joe Frame, guitarist. Restoration of the 1938 film was funded by a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, April 4, 2017<\/strong>
\n6:00 – 8:00 pm
\nAuditorium, 4th Floor<\/strong>
\nMain Library<\/strong>
\n5 Washington Street, Newark<\/p>\n

Essex Mountain Sanatorium was a 20-building complex built by Essex County, located on 200 acres at the highest point in Essex County, in present-day Verona, promoting recovery for patients with pure air and water. Tuberculosis, often called TB, was a highly-communicable disease, which most often affected a patient\u2019s lungs, frequently causing death. For many years before the introduction of antibiotics, TB was a major public health threat. Special hospitals for long-term patients, called sanatoriums, were a way to provide rest, good nutrition, and pure air, with the hope that patients would recover sufficiently.<\/p>\n

The program will also include a small exhibit with medical tools that predate the use of antibiotics and publications about tuberculosis, including national TB sanatorium guides that listed tuberculosis facilities in each state.<\/p>\n

The program is cosponsored by the Global Tuberculosis Institute at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.<\/p>\n