By Mary Carpenter • Photos Supplied
In the 19th century Tuberculosis — then known as consumption — was the #1 cause of death worldwide. Since the scientific discovery that a bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was the cause of Tuberculosis in 1882, it is estimated that globally more than 1.3 billion people have died of the disease.
As death and disability from Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases continue, the research done for more than 140 years at the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, New York remains invaluable.
To appreciate the work of the Institute’s scientists over the decades, we begin with its founder, Edward Livingston Trudeau. Born in 1848 to a family of New York City physicians, Trudeau’s goal was to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and enlist in active service. However, his plans changed when his older brother contracted Tuberculosis. Edward, who nursed James until his death, was so impacted by the experience, he enrolled in the medical school at what is now Columbia University, completing his medical training in 1871.
Trudeau married the same year and the couple established their home on Long Island, where he began his medical practice. Two years later, Trudeau faced his greatest fear. He was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and, based on his experience caring for his brother and others, he knew what was likely ahead of him. His colleagues urged him to leave the greater New York City area and come to the Adirondacks where he took up residence at Paul Smith’s, one of the region’s first wilderness hotels.
His time in the cold mountain air led to a remarkable and, for the times, highly unusual recovery. In 1876, Trudeau moved his family to Saranac Lake and established a medical practice in the region.
Research done by a Prussian physician, Hermann Brehmer and published in 1882, described an approach to treating Tuberculosis by what he called a “rest cure” similar to what Trudeau had found in the Adirondacks.
Following Brehmer’s protocol, Trudeau founded the Adirondack Cottage Sanitorium in 1884 on land donated by local guides and residents. A decade later he established the Saranac Laboratory for the Study of Tuberculosis with the support of several wealthy benefactors he had met at Paul Smith’s. The two facilities were the first in the U.S. to focus exclusively on the study and treatment of the disease.
Trudeau’s approach relied on exposure to fresh air, plenty of rest, healthy food, and an optimistic attitude. His research, which helped to identify principles for disease prevention and control, laid the groundwork for his well-deserved reputation as a “public health pioneer” and helped to earn Saranac Lake the distinction as a leading center for the treatment of Tuberculosis.
As the reputation of the Sanitarium and the village grew, more patients in search of a cure were drawn to the area than could be accommodated. It was then the idea of small, family-run cure cottages developed. Additional growth in the form of large facilities — the first in Gabriels in 1894 and Ray Brook in 1904 — added to capacity. The Will Rogers Memorial Hospital — named after the famous entertainer — was built in 1928 by the National Vaudeville Artists Association in recognition of the care provided to so many of the group’s members.
Over the years, the Sanitarium treated thousands infected with Tuberculosis. While treatment was not free, poor patients were cared for at less than cost and fund-raising never stopped. Many of the physicians and nurses, like Trudeau, were infected with Tuberculosis prior to joining the staff.
At the height of its success, the Sanitorium consisted of more than 50 buildings: housing for patients and staff, a main building, an infirmary, workshop, library, laundry, chapel, and community rooms. It even had its own post office named Trudeau, New York.
Dr. E.L. Trudeau’s only child to live well into adulthood, Francis — a graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School — joined his father’s practice shortly before his death in 1915 and eventually became director of the Sanatorium.
Around that time, building on the world-renowned expertise in Tuberculosis care, a school to train nurses and later to offer six-week summer courses designed to teach physicians the latest methods to treat the disease was created.
A member of the third generation of the storied Trudeau family, Dr. Francis Jr. (Frank), took his medical training at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons – his grandfather’s alma mater. After his graduation in 1950 he returned to his boyhood home in Saranac Lake to practice internal medicine.
By the early 1950s, an antibiotic treatment was developed that the medical community believed would conquer Tuberculosis worldwide. As patients could now be cured with several months of drug treatment, this development, heralded the end of the “rest cure” movement.
When the Trudeau Sanitarium closed in 1954, the Saranac Lake community was devastated. More than five percent of all jobs in the village and surrounding area were lost and the future appeared bleak.
Over the next two years, several efforts to repurpose the property’s buildings and acreage — assessed at over $2 million in 1956 funds; $23.5 million in 2025 purchasing power – were unsuccessful. But then in April of 1956 Dr. Frank made a stunning announcement. He would temporarily retire from his medical practice and devote himself full time to pursuing every possible solution for the community. It was a complicated process, but the following year he was able to announce the sale of the Sanitorium property to the American Management Association that planned to develop an educational and research center. The work at the Trudeau Laboratory would be restructured to address the changing needs of infectious disease research and would be renamed the Trudeau Institute.
Now, more than 150 years after Dr. E. L. Trudeau began his research in the waning decades of the 19th century, the principles he identified for disease prevention and control still have a lasting impact across the globe.
Much has changed in the ensuing years. No longer focused solely on Tuberculosis, the Trudeau Institute now works on ways to combat influenza, plagues, sepsis, Lyme disease, Dengue and Zika viruses, and most recently COVID.
Trudeau scientists have been successful in establishing many of the basic tenets of cellular immunology and were among the first to define how the immune system remembers previous infections.
To learn more about what is happening at The Trudeau Institute in the 21st century, check out SB’s cover article featuring Dr. William Reilly, the Institute’s current director, in the December 2024 issue.
Trudeau Institute
154 Algonquin Avenue
Saranac Lake, New York 12983
518 891-3080