The Forgotten Plague

Originally aired as part of PBS's American Experience series, filmmaker Chana Gazit's documentary recalls a medical history largely forgotten today: the massive health threat of tuberculosis. At the beginning of the 19th century, estimates claimed that tuberculosis killed one out of seven people in the United States and Europe. Tuberculosis played no favorites, taking lives in all communities, regardless of race or economic level. A significant breakthrough in treating the disease came from Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, a New York City physician who contracted tuberculosis but survived (although his daughter lost her life). Dr. Trudeau discovered that being in the clear air of the Adirondacks in upstate New York was more therapeutic than living in the polluted city, so in 1884 he established the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium at Saranac Lake, NY, which initiated a trend of creating tuberculosis sanitariums outside of urban settings. But it was the later research of pioneering German microbiologist Robert Koch that ultimately not only helped raise understanding of how tuberculosis was spread but also led to proper medical treatment of the disease when a cure was formulated in 1940. Combining rare archival/photographs with intelligent interviews of medical history experts, The Forgotten Plague offers a compelling portrait of a once-devastating epidemic that has in the past two decades has witnessed a disturbing resurgence due to HIV complications and global travel. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Hall)