Hermann Brehmer

Hermann Brehmer (1826 to 1889) was a German physician who founded the first German sanatorium for the systematic open-air treatment of tuberculosis. Born in Prussian Silesia, he first studied mathematics, astronomy and natural science at the University of Breslau, then turned to medicine at Berlin and received his doctorate in 1853. By one account he had himself been diagnosed with tuberculosis as a botany student, travelled to the Himalayas and found himself cured, and he returned to Germany to write a dissertation titled Tuberculosis is a Curable Disease. In 1854 he settled in Görbersdorf and opened a hospital for the lung sick where patients were given plentiful fresh high-altitude air and good nutrition; it grew to 300 beds, and its results surpassed earlier treatments. His work was continued by his former patient Peter Dettweiler, who stressed rest rather than exercise, and together they strongly influenced Edward Trudeau in founding the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium at Saranac Lake in the 1880s.