History of Colorado - "The World's Sanitarium"

"The World's Sanitarium"

Starting in the 1860s, when tuberculosis (TB) was a world-wide problem, physicians in the eastern United States recommended that their patients travel to sunny Colorado for their health. As a result, the number of people with tuberculosis, called "lungers", in the state grew alarmingly and without the services or facilities to support their needs. Not knowing how to manage a population of homeless, ill people, many were taken to jail. Because of the number of people with TB flocking to Denver, by the 1880s it was nicknamed the "World's Sanitarium". Cynthia Stout, a history scholar, asserted that by 1900 "one-third of Colorado's population were residents of the state because of tuberculosis."