Conffiined
Conffiined
Tuberculosis
Chapter - 1 - TB History
Tuberculosis, “an infectious disease that may affect almost any tissue of the body, especially the lungs, caused by the organism Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and characterized by tubercles.” Tuberculosis has been common in human history since before the Middle Ages. There has been evidence of TB in the spinal column of Egyptian mummies from 2400 BC. Around 460 BC, the term “phthisis” or consumption was first mentioned in Greek literature. Hippocrates is considered to be histories most famous physician and identified the disease as the most widespread and noted that it was very fatal. It was not until 1679 that Sylvius first described the exact pathological and anatomical descriptions of the disease in his Opera Medica and in 1882 a German scientist named Robert Koch discovered tubercle bacilli, the cause of tuberculosis.
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The increase was due to the fact that so many people were getting sick with tuberculosis. These sanatoriums were being used to help the tuberculosis patients recover. It was believed that the fresh air, good nutrition, and plenty of rest could cure tuberculosis. Many patients left the sanatoriums well enough to return to society; unfortunately, there were many patients that were unable to overcome the illness.
In 1904 the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society (JCRS) was founded in Denver, Colorado as a sectarian sanatorium to treat
tuberculosis (TB) patients in all stages of the disease. The society was founded by a group of immigrant Eastern European Jewish men, many of whom were themselves victims of TB. For decades patients flocked to Denver from all over the country and were admitted free of charge and catered primarily to Jewish patients in a distinctively Jewish environment.�
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Chapter - 2 - The Beginning
This is the story of the life of one certain tuberculosis patient named Lazarus Bearman. Lazarus was in the JCRS Sanatorium from 1921-1923. Lazarus story begins like any other human beings life, at his birth. He was born in Brest-Litovsk, Russia in 1878. Life for the Bearman family was like any normal Jewish family during that time. Lazarus and his two younger siblings went to the local Jewish institution called the Talmud-Torah, were they learned the basic concepts and practices of Judaism.
Lazarus Bearman
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po
oor
As time passed, Lazarus got older he met a beautiful woman named Eva Kaufman. Lazarus and Eva were married one year later and life after marriage was tough, and times seemed to be getting harder for both Lazarus and Eva in BrestLitovsk. In 1895 the town had suffered from a large fire. But it wasn’t until 1901 when the town suffered another big fire, which left hundreds of people homeless and poor, including Lazarus and Eva. Soon after, both of them set off to find work and a permanent place to live. Lazarus and Eva searched in Brest-Litovsk and surrounding towns. When Lazarus and Eva could not find work or a home, they decided to search out of the country. Soon after Lazarus’s 23rd birthday they decided to move to America in search for a better life. Lazarus and Eva had heard rumors that America was the land of opportunity and wanted to experience life there for themselves.
America Bound
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sic
different countries
check in
Statue of Liberty
America
Ellis Island
land of opportunity
rest and food
long lines of people
hundreds and hundreds of people
dirty illnesses papers,
New York
Chapter - 3 - In America
Finally they had arrived. After being cramped in trains and a boat, Lazarus and Eva made it to the shores of Ellis Island along with the other thousands of people they came here with them. Thinking that their journey was over, they now had to wait in lines. It took them one whole day to get through the long lines of people. Before entering the country everyone had to have all their papers in order and everyone was checked to ensure no illnesses of any sort could enter into the country. After the thorough check in, the Bearmans left the island a little more tired than they were before arriving at Ellis Island. They arrived in New York ready to get some much needed rest and food. The Bearmans planned to find jobs and a home to begin the next step to the rest of their lives.
They arrived in the Lower East Side (known as a predominantly Jewish community) in amazement of what they saw. There were people everywhere, they were shopping, working, and dining. The first thought was “were do we begin, there is so much here�.
the journe
ey begins They began their journey, and walked around the busy community asking different employers for job opportunities. Lazarus got lucky and found a job working as a tailor for a small suit shop making around ten dollars per week. The amount that Lazarus received was just enough to support his wife and himself. Eva also found a job working in a clothing factory making about fifty cents a week. Now that the Bearmans were employed they needed to find an apartment home, and not to long after found a small apartment home close to where both of them worked.
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The next few years of Lazarus and Eva’s life consisted of working and starting a family. They had four kids between 1904 and 1913, and they had dreamed about leaving their dirty, drafty apartment and wanted to find a house with more room for their family. In 1915, the time had come, and the family was able to afford a home. They went out looking and found a house in Smithtown Branch, Long Island that they absolutely loved.
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Chapter - 4 - Tuberculosis
As time passed by, the Bearman family was growing, and life could not get any better. Then one day in 1917, Lazarus came home not feeling well at all. He was coughing so much he felt like he was going to die. He also had a headache, a sore throat and it felt like he was running a fever as well. Not knowing what was ailing him he decided to ignore the symptoms and keep on working, because he could not afford to take a day off.
coughing so much he felt like
die
he was going
to
Months passed by and Lazarus was getting sicker. Eva convinced Lazarus to take a day off, and to see a doctor. He went reluctantly, but was glad that he did. The doctor informed him that he was suffering from a form of tuberculosis and that he should think about his family and go into a sanatorium to recover. Lazarus refused. He didn’t want to leave his family without any financial support. So he asked the doctor for any other suggestions. The doctor told him that there were no other options. Lazarus was not happy with that answer, and he stormed out of the office returning immediately back to work. After returning home from work that night, Lazarus explained to Eva the situation and diagnosis that the doctor had given. Upset with the situation and decision that Lazarus had made to return to work; Eva argued that he should enroll into a sanitarium. After a heated argument, Lazarus still refused to go into a sanitarium, and returned to work the next day.
diagnosis: tuberculosis
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Chapter - 5 - Sanatorium to Sanatorium
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Denver, Colorado
Four years later, Lazarus’s condition had worsened, and he finally decided to enroll into a sanatorium. In October of 1919 he was enrolled into the Suffolk Sanatorium in Holtsville, Long Island. Unsatisfied with the way they were treating him, he left in February of 1920. He then set out to find another sanatorium, and located one in Ray Brook, New York called the Ray Brook Sanatorium. He was admitted into the Ray Brook sanatorium on April 23, 1920. On January of 1921, he was discharged from the sanatorium for misconduct. Slowly, Lazarus was getting better, but he was unable to return home. After a few months H. Goldberg, Lazarus cousin, wrote and informed Lazarus about a sanatorium located in Denver, Colorado called the Jewish Consumptives Relief Society JCRS. He was told that the fresh mountain air, and the altitude would possibly help him recover faster. Lazarus was reluctant to leave his family behind, and travel across America to Denver. Unfortunately, he left his family behind and traveled to Denver. On April 22, 1921, Lazarus was admitted to the JCRS.
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Chapter - 6 -JCRS
When Lazarus arrived at JCRS, the doctors noticed that he was suffering from a slightly active fibroid tuberculosis, which was in its advanced stages. Lazarus was dissatisfied with JCRS upon arrival, and many doctors noticed that Lazarus was hard to please, irritable, and unhappy. He was also discourteous to the physicians and the nurses on numerous occasions. For example he would yell at the physicians and nurses when they would try and examine him, and he would claim on many occasions that he was abused, and even mentioned that he had been threatened. Lazarus tried to persuade many of the other patients that the physicians and nurses were only there to hurt or kill them. Then there were many occasions when the doctors would find that Lazarus had left the premises and would be gone for a few hours.
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slightly active fiffiifibroid tuberculosis
Discharged February 7, 1923
His behavior went on for two years till he was discharged from the sanatorium for misconduct on February 7, 1923. He was not pleased with the discharge, but his health had improved from his enrollment at JCRS. He was diagnosed before being discharged with moderately advanced pulmonary tuberculosis and his ability to perform work had also increased from four hours to six hours a day.
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Chapter - 7 - Retaliation
As Lazarus left JCRS, he was very upset with them and how they treated him. He walked to his cousins house and explained his frustration. His cousin, being family, sided with Lazarus, and advised him to sue the JCRS or at least the doctors on account for abuse charges. A few days went by and Lazarus wrote his wife and notified her of what had occurred in the JCRS, and his plan to sue the sanatorium.
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On March 1, 1926, after a long process of building a case against a few of doctors at the JCRS. I. D. Bronfis, Felix Baum, and C. D. Spivak, the doctors working at the JCRS were summoned. Lazarus was determined to win $35,000 dollars for all the injuries received while enrolled at JCRS. After a couple of days of being in court Spivak, Baum, and Bronfis pleaded their case and the judge dismissed Lazarus’s claims. Upset, Lazarus decided to approach his unfair treatment another way. After some research, and many years he decided that he would write about his awful experience and publish them in a Jewish publication named the Freiheit.
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“
To the Taxpayer, producing public, and to contributors of public and private charitable organizations. Is it a fact that our noble institutions are to be run by the worst underworld characters known, such as this Dr. I. D. Brofin, who practices adultery with his female help right in the institution? Are your daughters safe, to have them with an underworld character, and have them under his control? I am informed that Dr. I. D. Brofin draws a salary out of the charity funds intended for the poor, of $12,000.00 per year. Is it not a shame to rob the poor sick patients by drawing a salary that is so high, and for an underworld character as is this Dr. I. D. Brofin? Is the money you produce and contribute by taxes and voluntary gifts being used to protect and maintain criminals? Are courts influenced by that wealth as to justify the general criticism so often aimed at them? Does a poor honest person have and possible show to obtain justice in our courts against the modern criminals armed with graduation papers hiding behind a supposed superior knowledge? Is it a fact that framing an innocent person is becoming so common that it is winked at by attorneys and judges while criminals go free? Is it a fact that innocent persons can have suspicion cast on them for the balance of their lives by an unscrupulous medical doctor who states for a price that he believes one is insane and sends his victims to the mad house and escape punishment for perjury because it is merely an opinion? Is it a fact that the medical profession is seeking to usurp the function of the courts to try persons by medical experts? Are there cases when medical men (whom money is available) have condemned a wife to the insane asylum a case of paranoia because the wife objected to the husband entertaining in their home a concubine without interference? Has there been a National Jewish Hospital at 3800 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, Colorado soliciting funds from the public on the strength of fraudulent pictures representing a patient cured when in fact the crippled is still crippled? They substituted a well child for the crippled child for collecting purpose.Jewish Hospital, whose
Freiheit
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If so and the doctors and officials of National Jewish Hospital connived at the deception approved for the purpose of mulching the public of contributions? Are they men that would refuse to operate and kill, murder a person for a price? Is it a fact that Dr. I. D. Brofin, Superintendent of the National Jewish Hospital, who so conducted same as the cause suicide, and who is blacklisting his patients, victims, preventing them from getting and aid who attempted to railroad his victims to the insane asylum for revenge on money purposes (as the medical doctors are getting; $30 for every person they declare insane) where a great protest meeting that was held at the Hooker Street Synagogue where Rabbi Halpern was chairman as the head of the league of Mercy. Among the speakers against Dr. I. D. Brofin where S. Hornbein, Mr. Sam Price and others as stated by the R. M. News. Didn’t Dr. I. D. Brofin get away with it? Is it a fact that Dr. I. D Brofin, Supt. Of the N. J. H.; this Dr. Brofin when he was superintendent of the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society where he tortured his patients so cruel that one patient, Mr. Charles Limsky for whom Dr. Brofin took a dislike and he ordered him out of the Hospital. This, Mr. Limsky told me personally that Dr. Brofin is kicking me out of the institution, and I have no money, no friends, and no place to go, and I am in a desperate position. I do not know what to do, and that he couldn’t stand the torture of Dr. Brofin any longer, and he used his last $5 and got a gun and killed himself in the Windsor Hotel on July 22nd, 1922. This poor victim of Dr. Brofin had an insurance policy on his life. Who got it? Was it the very parties who tortured him? It is a fact that after I exposed some of their wrongs to the public, as a punishment, Dr. Felix Baum who was superintendent at the National Jewish Hospital in 1924-25 to whom I complained about the bad food conditions, and he answered me as follows: You American people are no good. You are living too much on luxuries. You ought to live in Germany. You would be glad to live on bread and water. Did he get by with that? Did the same Dr. Baum cooperate with Dr. I. D. Brofin then superintendent of J. C. R. S., gave me a dose of deadly poison with the intent to kill me. Did he get by with it?
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Is it a fact that after I was kicked out of the N. J. H., because I refused to take that poison and when I had their medicine analyzed and found eighty percent of deadly poison and I attempted to get legal assistance and I was told by a number of attorneys that I can not get any medical doctors to testify against another doctor. May I ask the public: Isn’t that a conspiracy against the public? And finally when I did find an honest real true attorney in Mr. William Penn Collins who is brave enough to fight all these wrongs and after fighting the case almost four years and it was dismissed by Judge Frank McDonough Sr., account of technicalities which that prevented me of having my case tried before a jury of 12 citizens so the public wouldn’t know what all the wrongs is going on in the charity trust. Has a poor honest person any chance in court? I appeal to the good people of Denver and elsewhere. I wish you to know the whole truth about a faking scheme carried out by the officials of the National Jewish Hospital, whose President is Rev. Dr. William S. Friedman. Mrs. S. Piseo, Secretary, and Mrs. Strain, Assistant Secretary and others, because I exposed the fact that they part or all of them gave me a dose of poison.
”
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convicted
Chapter - 8 - From the State Pen to Eternity
Throughout the last nine years of Lazarus’s life, his conditions worsened. Although, his condition was better than when he first enrolled in JCRS; Lazarus was still determined to destroy the JCRS the National Jewish Hospital and its doctors reputations with his publications. In 1932, danger was lurking around Lazarus, and finally caught up with him. He was arrested and charged in an investigation of circulating propaganda of a seditious and anti-Jewish nature. In February of 1932, Lazarus was convicted of criminal libel crime against Dr. I. D. Brofin, the medical director of the National Jewish Hospital. Lazarus was sentenced to eleven or twelve months in the Colorado State Penitentiary and a $500 dollar fine. Lazarus and his lawyer appealed the conviction claiming that Lazarus was too weak, and the jail time could result in death. The courts denied his appeal, and Lazarus was to serve his time. While Lazarus was in prison, his condition worsened, and eventually caused him to be bedridden. After ten months of service, Lazarus passed away. His family was notified of his death, and his body was sent back to New York.
Colophon Book Designer: Chris Osborn Class: Visual Sequencing Instructor: Martin Mendelsberg Typography: Akzidenz Grotesk Turtle Club Factual information comes from reasearch in Lazarus Bearman’s patient files located at the Ira M. Beck Archives at the University of Denver Penrose Library. (http://penrose.du.edu/about/collections/specialcollections/ jcrs/index.cfm) (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Tuberculosis) Pictures: - Stock Xchng: www.sxc.hu - Adobe Stock Photos - www.morguefile.com - Colorado State Archives Corrections Records: http://www. colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/pen/prison.html