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Pioneer of the Open-Air Treat ment for Tuberculosis— 67 Years Old. HIMSELF A CONSUMPTIVE Went to the Adirondacks in 1873 When His Case Had Been Pronounced Hopeless. Special to The New York Times, BARANAC LAKE S, N.Y. Nov. 15.—Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, pioneer in America of the open-air treatment for tuberculosis, and head of the famous A@irondack Cottage Sanitarium, died here today after over forty years’ bat tle amaliet the disease to the conquest of which he devoted his life He was conscious almost to the mo ment of death At his bedside were Mrs. Trudeau and a son, ON Francis BH. Trudeau, also tia cousin, Lawrence Aspinwall of New York, and his per sonal physicians, De Edward Hard win and Dr. Jo Wooeda I'rnce The en tire town and communally which grew up around+tiia laterta of humanitarian essence are tonleht in the profoundent The funeral will take place Thursday evening. The service is to be at the Church of Bilake the beloved Mhyal flan, which he founded here a quarter of a century ago,. The Interment will be in the churchyard of St John's in the Wilderness, which he founded also, et Paul smiths, and where a daughter and @ son are buried For the wave of agitation for open windows in offices and homes that has swept the country In recent years and for the erection throughout the United States and Canada of about oo sana toria for the open-air treatment of tu berculosis the example and influence of the late Dor Edward Livingston Trudeau are mainly responsible Me was the pioneer in America of the practice of those the ones laid down by Prehtzer and Kettweller, who fiatered that climate is not the only and allbim t factor in treating tuberculosle that the consumptive lea never sn ured by exposure full letment weather vid he se accustomned, of accurtoma seelf, to living constantly out of rest wan upon this theory that tor Fudeau built in Ibs @ ahack In the dirondack Wilderness, where he tried “cure himself and coaxed two patients to alt in a chair in the main day,wrapped up in blanket a nd the thermometer was somewhere and 40 below zero. But the exper t was # successful that today. Where that little shack still stands, Beoare it have risen the many Vast uildings that make up the little mount town of Trudeau, N. Y., and less n two miles away has sprung one Lake, which grew with Tru u's great work from a sawmill and aix houses in 177 to a sanitary city from which New York is said to have modeled its health code Repeated Koch's Experimenta. Dr. Trudeau was also one of the first scientific workers in this country to ob tain the tubercle baccillus in pure cultures after Koch's announcement of fits discovery in ISS2. Trudeau also re tedt all Koch's inoculation expert ia despite the fact that he had so s, 0 apparatus, and, as he con 4 himself, ‘‘an Indifferent medical education.”” He had to keep his guinea in a hole in the ground and warmed with a kerosene lamp to prevent the ir ing in the Adirondack Winter ants. He grew his tubercle bactlyi in a home-made thermostat heated by a prosene lamp, which exploded one night while he was in New York City and its pad burned his house, cultures, records inen pigs, and everything to the and he blew was a terrible one to aspiring young physician, but he heart from a letter which Sir Will Osler sent him “Dear Trudeau,’’ wrote Osler, “I am =, t hear of your misfortune, but, my word for it, there is nothing like a fire to make a man do the phoenix vs. Trudeau did it. Almost upon the ashes of his crude laboratory presently arose fires and perhaps best-equipped tory for medical research in merica George €. Cooper of New ark came forward with the necessary wapita. It was out of this laboratory that ‘as Dr. Trudeau's death lifts the embargo of secrecy) there came the role which, published in the Sum e edition of The New York Times the very morning that Dr F. Friedmann arrived in this country, caused many physicians to change their sons overnight as to the merits of German's claim of a “cure” for realosia by his “turtle *’ serum. article, while the writing was don his assistants, was really an eyes of the views of Trudeau, whoan d studied, afs 7 discarded as useless germs that both Friedmann and Irhowski tried to commercialize a pie ~ tee of Dr. Trudeau's career. Edward Livingston Trudeau was born in New York City in ISis. His father and mother were both of French de scent. James Trudeau, a friend and fel low-traveler of Audubon, having come of an old Huguenot family which came from France to Canada, then drifted down the Mississippi in the early days in New Orleans, fear which city he owned a plantation. The doctor's mother was the daughter of a New York physi — French birth, Dr. Eloi. Francois er. James Trudeau died of wounds received while commanding Island No. 10 in the Mississippi during the ciy' war. Mrs. Trudeau then wed wit her father in New York. When the rest of her three children, Edward Trudeau, Was only % years old the y went to Paris, where the boy wa s later. He returned to New York when he was 18 and hardly able mk a word of the language of his native city He planned to enter An- He after graduating from Columbia, an elder brother who had preceded to the Naval Academy was stricken by tuberculosis. Young Edward nursed and contracted the disease, of which Biren shortly died. Thus he came contact with the scourgy to the ex mination of which he determined to oe the rest of his lfe, he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City, was @raduated in isvl, and in the same year 44 into partnership practice with Peasenden Otia in New York. In the 6 year he married Miss Charlotte re of Douglaston, L. L, who has his mainstay throughout many a of discouragement, for their life ether was marked by many a tragedy, death of all their children save one, Francia Bo Trudeau, who, with Mrs. eau, survive, Dr. Edward L. Pru u, Jr. died In 1:48. .@ first tragedy —which was fortu nate for the world—was when Dr. Tru- Up Was Pronounced a hopeless case of tuberculosis He was 2 years old the physicians gave him six months ive. He survived nearly half a cent ury, kept up by his own writ and en thusiasm for the betterment of others and the defeat of the disease which ul timately killed him Went to Adirondacks in 1873. On the advice of the famous Dr. Al fred L. toomis he went to Paul Smith's in the Adirondacks in 1876, accompa ny his friend Lewis Livingston of New York .P Paul Smith's was then a hunter's clearing hous forty miles from the nearest railway station at Ausable ke When Trudeau was brought to aul Smith’s he was tried upstairs . oy put to red ¥ Kulde who said “weighed about in nuch ae a sherpa sis Af Smiths Trudeau im proved thanks to the tule talg of Lavingein Paul Smith and the lat e, Ho Harriman, who was then staying at the wilderness ton Harrman be came his life-tops friend, pouring money into his lap for his altruistic work It is a fact that when Harri man was a king in power financial, prin ces had to cool their heels in the ante room of his office while the frail coun try doctor, visiting New York, was joy ously received For the next three years he lived in the Adirondacks, through Winter and Summer, proving that a man in the last stages of tuberculosis could not only survive, but benefit by the rigid wil derness Winter. He hunted like a born Woodsman. Was a dead shot, and—amaz ing truth!—was the quickest man with the gloves that ever entered a back woods amateur ring. Doctors the Woods People- In the meantime he doctored the woods people within a radius of forty miles, attending Summer visitors at Saranac inn and Paul Smith's and the settlers in Winter. He was also called In for sick cows, horses, and dogs. He would travel thirty miles in the blizzard to usher a little woodsman into the world, and frequently forgot to send his bill. He was known as The Beloved Phy sician.”’ In 1877 he moved to Saranac Lake, a hamlet with a saw mill and six houses. His patients came to him there and New York doctors began to send tuber cular cases to him as a last hope. He dreamed about this time of a sanitarium that should be the everlasting foe of tuberculosis,”” but it was years before the dream was fulfilled. It was in ISS that he built the “ Tuttle Red '' shack on Mount Pisgah, near Sar anac Lake. ‘This was the nucleus, cost ing $40, of the great Adirondack Cot tage Sanitarium which has wielded such widespread influence. ‘The piers eanitarium in a million-dollar Institution ran on a semi-charitable barla and at a deficit of from 810,000 to 20,000 a year, Trideau never accepted a penny for sale organ director Stevenson Hie Patient. During thie forty years of labor in the battle against tuberculosis fr True deau had many distinguished patients, among them Robert Loula Stevenson, who lived at Havanac Lake in L8tss and there produced some of him wreat e at work , a special set of his works presented to the doctor Stevenson wrote a couplet in every flyleaf. In the doc tora “Jekyll and Hyde, for Instance, appears in Stevenson's writing: Trudeau wags all the Winter at my side, I never saw the nose of Mr. Hyde. These two men—as yet unconscious of each other's greatness—had many amusing arguments, and sometimes they would not speak for weeks after, for instance, a quarrel regarding the respective merits of the British luggage system and the American baggage S8yYs tem Again, Stevenson had just in lected his great essay, “ The Lantern- Bearers,” when he went to Trudeau's laboratory to hear something about his “tent The sight of the ravages of disease which Trudeau showed in bot tled forming too much for Stevenson. He bolted out into the snow and later wale “Trudeau, your light may be very bright, but to me it smells of oil like the devil” Honored for Ula Labora, Trudeau was highly honored for his labors during Nia lifetime hie received, armous other degrees, the Li. D. of both Medill and the University of Pennsyl vans, Master of Bcience of Columbia, and honorary Fellow of the Phippa In stitute. The Pennsylvania degree was conferred In absentia, Dr. Trudeau usu ally being too il to leave Saranac Lake. Yale offered to confer an LL... but the doctor was unable to leave his bed to bhe present. In 1010 he was Presi dent of the [eighth Congress of Phy sicians and Surgeons at Washington, ID. ¢ Hardly able to stand on his feet, he addressed his colleagues on “The Value of Optimism in Medicine.” It was his last great public utterance Ilia votes hardy audible because he was suf fering imtensely as he spoke, he con cluded thus: “So let us not quench the faith nor turn from the vision which we carry, whether we own it or not; and thus in spired, many will reach the goal.”
Newspaper Details
New York Times
New York, New York, US
Tue, Nov 16, 1915
Page 14
Full Page
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Anonymous
USA 11 Jul 2026
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