The Girl in Building C - by Mary Krugerud (Paperback)

About the Book

Letters from a stay in a tuberculosis sanatorium plumb losses of youth, of freedom, of life--but also gains in mobility, in education, in friendships, and in love.

Book Synopsis

Letters from a stay in a tuberculosis sanatorium plumb losses of youth, of freedom, of life--but also gains in mobility, in education, in friendships, and in love.

Review Quotes

"Nothing brings medical history alive like a patient's narrative, and Mary Krugerud has uncovered an extraordinary story in Marilyn Barnes's letters to her family from the Ah-gwah-ching tuberculosis sanatorium. To read these missives is a lesson in humbleness. For three years Marilyn was brave, good humored, and kind as she worked her way through her arduous TB 'cure.' This was in the 1940s, before the routine use of antibiotics, and many of Marilyn's friends at the 'san' died. She needed love and support but always tried to reassure her anxious parents that she was 'feeling just swell.' Today, though TB is mostly curable, patients still need help beyond the long course of drugs; The Girl in Building C explains why. It is the human face of a terrible disease." Dr. Helen Bynum, author of Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis