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“These children on their return from preventorium taught their mother how to give them the right care. The nurse helped, too, and now the mother has complete confidence in her.”

Tuberculosis was still a serious public health problem in the 1930s, and a common cause of death. Health reformers founded the “preventorium” movement in the early 20th century to isolate children who had been exposed to tuberculosis but did not yet show evidence of symptoms.

The De Santis children were sent to a tuberculosis preventorium because their sister contracted the disease.

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine
 

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