The History & Hauntings of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium
 

http://www.prairieghosts.com/waverly_tb.html

Imagine yourself choking. Not being able to get air in to your lungs because your throat is closing up inside from something unseen, congesting and constricting the tissues like invisible hands. Your chest feels like it’s ready to explode and your lungs feel like they are on fire. Finally, able to cough, clumps of bright red blood spew from your mouth as the inner walls of your lungs have started to disintegrate. The buzzing and dizziness that you feel in your head is from the constant fever you keep and made worse by the lack of oxygen going to your brain. Capillaries explode in your eyes due to the violent coughing spells and leave your eyes spotted with broken capillaries or a violent crimson red. Your skin has now turned a ghastly pasty white color because your body has stopped producing enough red blood cells to keep the pigment in your skin.


These graphic descriptions can only provide the modern reader with a hint of what millions suffered from in the early history of America -- the dreaded and deadly “white death” known as tuberculosis. The plague swept through the country for centuries, claiming entire families and sometimes entire towns. It was a terrifying and very contagious disease for which there was no cure.

In 1900, Louisville, Kentucky had the highest tuberculosis death rate in the country. This was due to the fact Louisville is such a low valley area and before development, was basically all swampland and perfect breeding ground for the Tuberculosis bacteria. As with many other towns and cities across the country, hospitals were needed to care for the sick. In 1910, a wooden, two-story hospital with 40 beds opened on one of the highest elevated hills in southern Jefferson County to try and contain this ravaging disease.