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[SIU] Shake It Up
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Month // Year: August // 2007
Forecast: Warm and pleasant. Some rain is expected in the evenings. Highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's.
What's Happening: Arrival Day, Student Orientation, Welcome Dinner, Welcome Back Lock-In
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Character Spotlight
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Record [&&] Plotting
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The History of Waverly Hills, [&&] Recommended Read
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[&&] Swear To Shake It Up
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Posts: 96
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Joined: 7-October 06
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Imagine yourself choking. Not being able to get adequate air into your lungs because your throat is closing up due to something unseen, congesting and constricting the tissues like invisible hands. Your chest feels like it's ready to explode and your lungs feel like they're on fire. Finally able to cough, clumps of bright red blood spews from your mouth as the inner walls of your lungs disintegrate. The buzzing and dizziness you feel in your head is from the constant fever you keep and is made worse by the lack of oxygen reaching your brain. Capillaries burst in your eyes thanks to the violent coughing spells, leaving your eyes spotted with crimson splotches. Your skin turns a ghastly white because your body has given up the fight to produce enough red blood cells to keep the pigment of your skin...
This graphic description can only provide the reader with a miniscule hint of what millions suffered from in the early history of America -- The dreaded and deadly “white death,” also known as tuberculosis. The plague swept through the country for centuries, claiming entire families and sometimes entire towns. It was a terrifying and very contagious disease for which there was no cure.
In 1900, Louisville, Kentucky had the highest tuberculosis death rate in the country. This was due to the fact that Louisville was such a low valley area and before development, was basically all swampland and perfect breeding ground for the Tuberculosis bacteria. As with many other towns and cities across the country, hospitals were needed to care for the rapidly growing rates of sick people. In 1910, a wooden, two-story hospital with 40 beds opened on one of the highest elevated hills in southern Jefferson County to try and contain this ravaging disease. Officials soon found that this small hospital was simply too small, as they were soon housing more than 130 cases of Tuberculosis. Louisville needed a much larger facility and for which money began to be raised for its construction. Land was donated and $11 million was used to start construction on the new hospital in 1924.
The hospital, known as Waverly Hills, was opened in 1926 and was considered to be the most advanced Tuberculosis hospital in the country. If a patient had any chance of surviving the disease, Waverly Hills was the place to come for treatment. Of course, treatment in those days was primitive at best, meaning that many simply came here to die. In those days, it was believed that the best cure for Tuberculosis was plenty of nutritious food, plenty of rest and plenty of fresh air. Many patients came to Waverly and were actually cured and became well enough to once again enter society. For those not as fortunate, Waverly was the last place they ever saw. Records have been lost, but it is estimated that tens of thousands died at Waverly. At the height of the Tuberculosis epidemic, it is reported that one patient died per hour.
The numerous doctors and nurses volunteered their lives to try and find a cure for this deadly disease. Many of them lived and died there with the patients. A number of different experiments were attempted, and failed, in search of a cure. Some of these experiments may sound barbaric, or even pointless by today’s standards, but others have become common practice. The lungs were exposed to ultraviolet light to try and stop the spread of the bacteria. This was done in early versions of “sun rooms,” using artificial light to mimic the effects of sunlight. Patients were also placed on the roof or on the open porches of the upper floor to take in air and sunlight. Keeping in mind that fresh air was thought to be a cure for the disease, the patients would often to be placed in front of the open windows in both summer and winter. Photographs exist that show many of the dying literally covered in snow but still placed outside in hopes that their lungs would expand in the clean, country air.
Many of the treatments were much harsher, and much bloodier. Balloons were surgically implanted into the lungs and then filled with air to try and expand them more, often with disastrous results. Hydrotherapy often caused Pneumonia. But some experiments were useful and these procedures are still used today. Pneumothorax was a procedure that consisted of deflating the infected area of the lung for a period of time and then letting it heal. Thoracoplasty was a very invasive surgical procedure where the chest of the patient was opened up and then cords of muscle and up to seven ribs were removed. The opening was then closed up with the idea that the lungs would then be free to expand further and allow more oxygen into the lungs. This bloody procedure was only attempted as a last resort because fewer than 5% of the patients ever survived it.
In many cases, entire families came to live at Waverly Hills. Some were cured but many others left the hospital through what was called nick named the “Body Chute.” This was a converted Coal-Mine tunnel that led from the hospital to the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill. It consisted of a motorized rail and cable system where the bodies were placed and lowered down on one side of the tunnel and steps led up and down on the other. A small steam plant on the property heated the tunnel, as well as the hospital and provided warmth for the maintenance workers that lived off the property. This was their entrance and exit for work. The tunnel was totally enclosed from the Morgue wing of the hospital. The purpose of this was so that the patients couldn't see how many bodies were actually leaving the hospital. It was believed this would negatively affect their morale as the doctors discovered early on that the mental health of the patients was just as important as their physical health.
Because of the procedures and experiments that were performed at Waverly Hills and other hospitals around the country, Tuberculosis was declining worldwide by the late 1930’s. It wasn't until 1943, though, that a young graduate student at Rutgers University by the name of Albert Schatz discovered Streptomycin, the first real medicine against the disease. By the mid 1950’s, Tuberculosis had been largely eradicated because of this antibiotic. In 1961, Waverly Hills Sanatorium was closed because there was no longer a need for a Tuberculosis facility. The buildings were reopened in 1962 as the Woodhaven Geriatrics Sanitarium.
There have been many tales of patient mistreatment and unusual experiments that have filtered down from the hill over the years. Some have been proven false while others, unfortunately, have turned out to be true. Electroshock therapy was widely used as it was considered to be a very effective treatment in those days. Even today, it has been used with great results; but now, as it was then, tragic losses sometimes occurred. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, a time of budget cuts for facilities of this type, there were many well documented cases of horrible conditions and unusual treatments at mental institutions all across the country. Apparently Woodhaven was no different because the state of Kentucky closed it down in 1982 due to patient abuse. The buildings, contents and land were auctioned off and the doors were locked for good.
The building and land changed hands several times over the next 18 years. The second owner of the property wanted to tear all the buildings down to construct the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ. He succeeded in demolishing all of the buildings except for the main hospital and was only stopped by an injunction because the building is on the National Historic Register’s “endangered” list. He then decided that if he couldn't legally tear it down, he would do everything in his power to get it condemned. He let vandals come into the building and tear it up. After breaking windows, porcelain sinks, toilets and doors, they began spraying graffiti on every available wall. The owner then dug around the foundation, in some places as deep as 30 feet, to try and make the foundation crack. If this happened, then he believed he could get the building condemned and would be able to legally tear it down. Fortunately, the structure refused to give way and his efforts failed.
By 2001, this once regal and majestic hospital had been ravaged by time, the elements and vandals and was a shell of its former self. Waverly Hills had became every town’s “haunted house.” Vagrants took to living there and kids broke in for the rush of finding a “ghost” or just to get high. It started to get the reputation of being haunted and rumors had it that satanic rituals were taking place within its walls. There were tales of a little girl that would run up and down the third floor solarium playing hide and seek with trespassers, of a little boy playing with his leather ball, of rooms lighting up as if there was still power to the building, doors slamming, disembodied voices, a hearse driving up and dropping off coffins and an old woman running from the front door with her wrists bleeding screaming, “Help me, somebody save me!” The years went by and the owner decided to sell the property to the new owner, a proper English gentleman in his early thirties by the name of Richard Wolcott, who took possession of the building in 2001.
In that same year, Mr. Wolcott, as he liked to be called, immediately obtained the rights to begin construction on the Waverly Hills Sanitarium building. Knowing full well of the building's history he had big plans to turn the former hospital into a top-rate boarding school for America's adolescents. The Louisville locals soon took notice to the building's rapid turn around and gossip began to ring through the streets, focusing mainly on how peculiar it was to turn a building with such a horrid reputation into something marvelous for the youth of America. Still, they welcomed the prospect with open arms and were excited by the idea of sending their children to what was sure to become a legend.
And legend it became. Four years later construction gave way to the building's restored majesty and by time the new year rolled around, the Waverly Hills Boarding School was open to the public.
Note: Credit goes here for this article. Edited slightly by me to fit the RP.
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Superlative.Desires by .ghost of the IF Skin Zone. Skin edited only slightly by moi. Other credits can be found here.
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