Social Distancing: One Hundred Years Ago

The world saw a lot more transmittable viruses, illnesses and diseases a hundred years ago. In fact the top causes of death were infectious diseases like pneumonia and influenza, tuberculosis, diphtheria.

Social Distancing allowed for living with your family, as long as you slept in a tent in the yard

My great-great-uncle, Robert Adam, contracted tuberculosis during his round-the-world tours. As a result, he lived the last years of his life, 1910 to 1917, at the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives, with summertime visits to the family cottage at Sturgeon Point.

The Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives in 1911: wide verandas and large open windows

The Sanitarium was built with extra large windows as the thinking back then was that fresh air was beneficial to consumptives. In warmer months – and it seems this was taken as being any month without snow – the patients slept outdoors or in tents

Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives took the fresh air approach seriously: beds outdoors on the veranda in summer months

Self Isolation was a room set up in a tent

Large open windows allowed for fresh air circulation

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Page 97: Petron, Friends and Self

Below, a group portrait of my friends, with my sister Petron (far right) at the Muskoka Sanatorium, 1911.

Two friends and self, same time.

And down to just myself, 1913, at Sturgeon Point.

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Page 90: Myself, 1909 – 1914

Here I am, a young doctor aboard the SS Agamemnon bound from Glasgow to Australia. The whole world and my whole life in front of me.

And here I am, five years later, at Sturgeon Point and at the dock by the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives. The world behind me, my life counting down.

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Page 87: Myself, 1911 & 1915

Winter 1911, I had recently returned from my travels around the world. I was living in the Sanatorium but no doubt thought I’d recuperate.

Sprint 1915, I am still living at the Sanatorium. I think I might still recuperate, however even then I was not so sure.

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Page 77: Sanatorium, Carpenters

This is the view out towards Lake Muskoka, from the Sanatorium:

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This is one of the “shacks” that make up the Hospital. Note the large windows which are open to allow for fresh air to circulate.

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As I spent the summer of 1915 at Sturgeon Lake, I was able to watch the progress of the new church. Below are some of the carpenters who worked on this project:

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Page 75: Nurses, Carters and our New House

Another photograph of the Nurses at the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives.

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My family lives in Lindsay, Ontario – but summers we travel up the lake to the cottage. We have a new house here on Sturgeon Point:

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Work is still done by horse cart. The local carters, Sturgeon Point 1915:

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Page 74: Save Me

The Sturgeon Point Union Church is complete – it’s a unique building: an eight-sided church with window on seven of the eight sides, with dormer windows in the roof to let in more light. It is literally in our back yard – to the right is the back of our old house.

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Saving my life? The nursing staff at the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives, my Sanatorium.

Page 72: Home – Fresh Air

The Sanitorium, officially named the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives, was built in 1902, ten years before I called it home.

Treatments are focused on bed rest, a nourishing diet, and fresh air, and we spend 10 to 12 hours of each day in the open air, regardless of the weather.

The buildings have many windows, and large verandas where our cots are placed. This wasn’t so bad, on this day in May, we woke to temperatures hovering above freezing. The day proceeded to warm up nicely, reaching a high of 20 Celsius, before dipping to just above freezing again overnight. That is why we have blankets.

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Here’s Bingo – local dog, with some children off to the side.

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The Sanitorium admits only patients in the early stages of Tuberculosis – my friends and I are often the picture, if not the reality, of good health.

Page 62: War, Peace

In May, 1910, sailing down from Yokohama to Kobe, Japan, the SS Prometheus passed the SMS Scharnhorst, a German warship. It was only just recently commissioned into service, in 1907. Her main use at this time was just in conducting sea trials, and sailing around Asian ports. But just a few years later, in December 1914 it was part of the German fleet in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The German fleet was out-gunned and out-raced by the British Navy, which sunk the SMS Scharnhorst and five other German warships.

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In December 1914 I would have been tucked away in one of the shacks at the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives. Below, in winter 1913:

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At the end of 1909, returning back to London from Australia, we passed Spain. Below, a view of the Sierra Nevada snow-capped mountains.

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