A good, first hand account of living in a tuberculosis sanitarium is The Plague and I, by Betty MacDonald, creator of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Ma and Pa Kettle. (The latter a spin-off of the movie version of her hilarious book about life in the rural Pacific Northwest, The Egg and I.) This is MacDonald's description of leaving home for the asylum:

As we drove off I turned and waved and waved to the children. They stood on the sidewalk, squinting against the sun. Young, long-legged, and defenseless. I loved them so much that I felt my heart draining and wondered if I was leaving a trail behind me like the shiny mark of a snail.

Once at the sanitarium, she would only be allowed to see them once a month for no more than ten minutes. Children were too disturbing to patients. And then there were the rigidly applied rules:

"Patients must not read. Patients must not write. Patients must not talk. Patients must not laugh. Patients must not sing. Patients must lie still. Patients must not reach. Patients must relax. Patients must..." I was ready for the bath so I interrupted to ask if I might put a little cold water into the steaming tub or if there was a rule that patients must be boiled.

She describes a life of enforced bedrest, twenty-four hours a day, under the watchful eye of doctors and nurses. (And I do mean strict. They weren't even allowed bathroom privileges but had to use the bedpan.) A bedrest that was enforced by constant reminders that any failure of the cure was solely the fault of the patient for failing to adhere to the rules.

She also describes a kind of slave-labor system, in which patients who were further along in their cures were allowed to indulge in gradually increasing levels of activity - most of which consisted of performing menial labor for the sanatariam. It isn't a pretty tale, but it's told with a biting wit, which makes it an enteraining read despite its depressing subject matter.

And it's a sobering reminder of just how paternalistic medicine can be.