The last post

In pre-antibiotic days, Tb patients were sometimes sent to sanatoriums for rest, good food and fresh air.

Otago had two, including the Pleasant Valley Sanatorium, just south of Palmerston, which opened 100 years ago last month.

Mrs Isobel Spence, of Tainui, could not let the centenary pass without sharing the contents of 11 letters written by her aunt Lizzie Gamble - a 16-year-old patient at Pleasant Valley in the autumn and winter of 1911.

"They really, really touched me. I just thought she was a sweet, lovely girl.

"She didn't really make a big fuss about her condition. She was so sure she was going to get better."

Lizzie died from tuberculosis in the spring of 1911.

Her letters were mostly addressed to her mother and her sister Mag.

Pleasant Valley, April 4:"Dear Mag, The time seems to pass very quickly here. To think, that we have been here over four weeks. We have not been up. It seems as if we are going to stay in bed for ever. To think, it is six months since I first went to bed and to find myself still here at the end of that time."

The sanatorium had opened the previous year, the ODT reporting it was built "on proper lines" and was fully equipped with "all appliances which would render the life of the patients more comfortable and give them every opportunity to regain their health and strength".

A party from Dunedin attended the opening by train, listened to speeches, enjoyed an orchestral recital with lunch and took a stroll in the sunshine.

"It would be too much to hope," one speaker remarked, "that all days at this sanatorium would be so pleasant as this one ... with its warmth of sentiment and bright sunshine."

Bad weather was a continuing theme in Lizzie's letters.

April 4: "We wish it would clear up for a bit so that the ground would dry and that the clothes would dry. Last week's washing is not dry yet so I don't know when we will have clean clothes ..."

April 23: "We have had terrible weather the past few days. The rain beating in the doors. They have never had the doors closed since they came here.

"My word, I don't think I will be afraid of catching cold after I leave here, lying out on the veranda these bitter days, with the wind and the rain driving everywhere."

The 1909 Household Companion: The Family Doctor noted that for the treatment of Tb "so far as possible" air should never be "rebreathed".

"Air which has once been breathed is deprived of some of its oxygen and what is still more objectionable is loaded with some of the poisons given off by the body.