In the 1920s, tuberculosis became the leading killer of young adults. Almost 30% of young adult deaths were related to tuberculosis and its complications. In South Carolina alone, over 5,000 cases of tuberculosis were reported. Many sanatoriums were opened across the state, including Hopewell Sanatorium in Greenville.
Hopewell Sanatorium. Image courtesy of WYFF4
The hospital was originally established as a TB Camp in 1915, comprised of tents and wood cottages meant to separate tuberculosis patients from the rest of the world. South Carolina had seven public health nurses working to educate patients on how to care for themselves and prevent the spread of the disease. In 1930, the walls of Hopewell Sanatorium were erected and saw patients for decades before it was shut down. Later the building would go on to be a work release building for prisoners before being abandoned sometime in the 1990s. After a fire in the early 2000s, the building was demolished with only the root cellar surviving. Today, Herdklotz Park sits over top of the ruins of the sanatorium. Local legends say that the park is haunted because of the area's troubled past. People claim to hear the ring of bells, shouts and screams, and shadowy figures hanging around the location of the old hospital.
Herdklotz Park today. Image courtesy of Greenville County Rec
Citations -
Komorowski, G. (2020, October 19). Greenville Park has a fiery past. WYFF. https://www.wyff4.com/article/greenville-park-has-a-fiery-past/34346174
Rabley, Shea. “History of Tuberculosis ,” PowerPoint, n.d. https://tinyurl.com/history-tuberculosis-SC
Image courtesy of IMDB
A few days prior to May Garrett's letter, on July 6th, the first all-spoken movie premieres in New York City. The film was called Lights of New York and while not the first film to feature sound, it was the first to be full "talkie" as it is called. Film was still fresh on the scene in the 1920s, experiencing numerous technological innovations in the years leading up to 1928 to be able to produce the first talkie movie. Early sound films achieved sound by the Kineto-phonograph, W.K.L. Dickson's blend of Thomas Edison's phonograph and kinetoscope that allowed simultaneous film and sound. In its early form, audio would be separately recorded onto discs and played concurrently with film on a projector. German inventors Josef Engl, Joseph Massole, and Hans Vogt would change the game by introducing optical-sound to films, which is when sound is recorded onto the film itself along with visuals. Their method was dubbed the Tri-Ergon method and involved converting sound to light via photocell technology, a light-to-electrical transducer that impacts resistance depending on light exposure.
Image courtesy of Sotheby's
Among film buffs, there is a debate as to what the first sound film was, with many arguing that the The Jazz Singer (1926) was in fact the first talkie. However, lines of spoken dialogue in The Jazz Singer are very minimal, with the film featuring entirely silent portions and most of the sound technology reserved for large musical numbers.
Lights of New York was entirely voiced. Featuring Helen Costello, Cullen Landis, and Mary Carr, among others, the film is a crime drama that follows bootleggers Jackson and Dickson as they open a speakeasy in New York with their friend Eddie Morgan. Not that Eddie and his business partner, Gene, know this. The barber shop they open is merely a front for the speakeasy Jackson and Dickson are running.
Interestingly, the sound for the film was recorded using the sound-on-disc format, as opposed to the Tri-Ergon method. Perhaps this was due to Warners', the company that produced the film, use of their proprietary Vitaphone...this meant some poor soul was responsible for syncing the audio across seven reels of film. Some soul that partook in a big moment in history.
As expected, the film does not hold up to today's standards, with the acting and dialogue at the forefront of criticism. That said, Lights of New York would go on to be a massive box office success for Warner Bros.
For those interested, the full film can be accessed here for your viewing pleasure. Make a night of it!
Citations -
Kaufman, J.B. “Lights of New York (1928).” J.B. Kaufman, June 1, 2019. http://www.jbkaufman.com/movie-of-the-month/lights-new-york-1928.
“Lights of New York.” (1928) - Turner Classic Movies, January 1, 1970. https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/272/lights-of-new-york/#.
Lynch, K., Marchuk, N., & Elwin, M. (2016). Embedded computing and mechatronics with the PIC32 microcontroller. Newnes. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-09898-2
McGowan, Andrew. “The First Sound Film Was Not The Jazz Singer.” Collider, April 3, 2023. https://collider.com/the-first-sound-film-was-not-the-jazz-singer/.
In the early 20th century, rheumatism was thought to be related to tuberculosis. In 1925, a Paris study claimed to have found Koch bacilli, the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis, in the blood and synovial fluid of patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Early TB treatments included the use of heavy metals like arsenic and gold to combat the disease. By extension, these same treatments were used to treat rheumatism, specifically gold injections. Shots contained gold salts and were injected into the muscle or taken orally in tablet form, though tablets came later in the 1980s.
Though science is not sure why, gold salts possess anti-inflammatory properties, can reduce joint pain, and possibly prevent joint deformities caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Gold is still a heavy metal, no matter how beneficial it can be to people. Common side effects would be skin rashes, renal toxicity, diarrhea, and even a few noted cases of skin turning blue.
Citations -
Bremner, Joan M. “Tuberculous Rheumatism.” Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 17, no. 4 (1958): 441–43. https://doi.org/10.1136/ard.17.4.441.
Organization, Healio, and ImageObject. “The Not so Golden Age of Rheumatology Therapy.” Healio, December 13, 2019. https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20191212/the-not-so-golden-age-of-rheumatology-treatment.