News

San Haven's history in saving lives with TB

By Scott Wagar

11/27/2012

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Bottineau Courant is conducting a series which is looking at the history of San Haven, North Dakota’s only state run sanatorium, which was operated in the Turtle Mountains for the majority of the 1900s. This week, the newspaper looks at the discovery of antibiotics, which assisted in closing the sanatorium.

When San Haven opened in 1912, the primary treatments for the tubercular patients were fresh air, rest and a well balanced diet. As the decades went by at the sanatorium the primary treatments continued on throughout its history, but different treatments came and went.

Over the years, patients were given sun treatments, which were proven not to work and discontinued at the San. There were numerous surgical procedures conducted that collapse patients’ tubercular lungs and allowed them to rest, which saved a large number of lives at the sanatorium, but were grueling surgeries to go through, because the patients were awake through the procedures without general anesthetic because their lungs and health were too poor to take anesthetic.

As the sanatorium continued to treat their patients on a daily basis, researchers throughout the world were working on trying to find a cure for TB. A major breakthrough came in the 1940s when researchers discovered antibiotics that slow growth of, and in some instances, in sufficient concentration, eliminated TB.

The first major breakthrough happened in 1943 when Dr. Selman Waksman, a microbiologist at Rutgers University, along with his colleague, Albert Schatz, were examining soil brought into their lab by a farmer who claimed his poultry were becoming ill because of the soil on his farmstead.

In the soil, Waksman and Schatz discovered a fungus called Stretomyces griseus.

The two researchers began to experiment with the fungus and discovered that certain strains of the fungus produced a chemical agent that slowed or eliminated certain pathogens, which included TB. Waksman and Schatz called their new pharmaceutical Streptomycin.

Scientists continued their work in finding other pharmaceuticals to assist with TB and in the late 1940s discovered aminosalicylic acid and isoniazid.

On July 1, 1949, with the medications approval of being able to eliminate TB, San Haven began to use the antibiotics. By 1958, the number of beds being utilized at the sanatorium declined greatly.

In that same year, the state determined that Grafton State School, an institution for the mentally handicapped, was overcrowded. With open beds at the San, patients from Grafton were moved into the sanatorium with a portion of the San being used to treat TB patients, and the remainder of facility to care for the mentally ill, which consisted primarily of hydrocephalics.

On July 1, 1973, the North Dakota Tuberculosis Sanatorium officially closed as a state institution for the treatment of TB. With antibiotics, and local hospitals treating TB, there were no reasons to keep the San open for TB patients. With the closure, Grafton took over the facility and operated it as institution for the mentally handicapped.

Grafton ran the operations of the grounds until December 21, 1987, due to a judicial decision. In the summer of 1985, U.S. District Judge, Bruce Van Sickle, ruled in favored of a case brought before the court by the Association for Retarded Citizens, to deinstitutionalize the mentally handicapped and place them in the private sector.

Governor George Sinner was ordered by the court to remove all patients from San Haven.
On that December day in 1987, the last seven patients were removed from the facility and the state closed down the institution.

Shortly after San Haven was closed, a variety of companies from the private sector rented space within the grounds for a short time. After companies left the institution, the state was unable to care for the sanatorium due to budget cuts. In 1993, the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Indian Reservation purchased the institution for $1,100 with plans to renovate the buildings for other uses.

As the grounds stood empty during the 1990s, and against the wishes of the tribe, individuals trespassed into the former sanatorium and stole any items of value. Worse, in their efforts to steal from the San they caused mass destruction of the facility.

It also became a place for young people to party and in 1999 while in the Infirmary Building two kids entered into an open elevator shaft where one was killed and the other seriously injured.

Since that time, the buildings at San Haven have started to deteriorate and are slowly falling in on themselves.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of San Haven’s origins. In the 61 years that it was state sanatorium, the San went from one building on 260 acres of land to 20 plus buildings on 940 acres of land.

It has been said that the sanatorium did not help in eliminating TB in our state. However, thousands of individuals were diagnosed with TB in North Dakota and only a small fraction of those people passed away from the disease. San Haven did a tremendous job in caring for those with TB and in the process saved thousands of people’s lives in our state.