Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/199

 Popular Science Monthly

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��dren. A father, though suffering from tuberculosis, is usually the bread-winner. Therefore, he can not be sent away.

It was to meet just such conditions that the Farmingdale Preventorium was built, to provide a place to accommodate young children in whose homes tuberculosis con- stituted a menace to their health. The institution was organized primarily with a view toward building up underfed, poorly- nourished children, who had been exposed to tuberculosis or who had contracted it, but who were in such early stages of the disease that it might be eradicated. Dr. Herman Biggs has estimated that there are forty thousand of these unfortunate children in New York Cit>%

The Farmingdale Preventorium accom- modates approximately two hundred chil- dren, who are kept there for an average of about four months, so that the institution provides for six hundred children in a year. It is situated in the sandy pine belt of Xew Jersey, where the air is particularly life-giving. The children have a fine play- ground of one hundred and seventy acres.

On entering the Preventorium each child is quarantined for three weeks in order to

��prevent infection of the other residents. Discharged from quarantine, he is assigned to one of the open-air shacks, each of which accommodates thirt>'-two children. Here he finds open-air sleeping quarters.

Next he goes to the open-air school and enters the class for which his city schooling has fitted him. For the first time in his life, perhaps, he is given good, wholesome food, and all he can eat of it. Twenty- four hours a day he spends in the open air, pleasant surroundings, room and sunshine in contrast to the crowded, dark tenement. No wonder he picks up. The average gain is about seven pounds, which represents fif- teen per cent of the average body weight.

Teaching School in the Open Air

As children are accepted up to the age of fourteen years, school instruction has been provided for them that they may not be behind in their studies when they return to the city. Ten hours a week of school work keep them up to their grade.

While the children are at the Prevento- rium, every effort is made to improve the condition of their homes in order that their improvement may be permanent.

���Children are accepted at the Preventorium up to fourteen years of age so that school in- struction must be provided. Ten hours of school work a week are sufficient to keep the children up to their grade. The curriculum is the same as in the city schools

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