Es dauert ein paar Jahre, von einem Jahrhundert ins nächste zu wechseln. So feiern wir nun das rund hundertjährige Jubiläum dieser besonderen Epoche, die wir «fin de siècle» nennen – und wir sollten es horizontal feiern wie es im Sanatorium gemacht wurde. Fin de siècle ist unter anderem der Glaube an den sozialen Verfall, der Ende des
On Health
It determines our hair, and it determines our entire body, right down to our shoe soles. It determines our excrements. It determines our behaviour, it determines our lifestyle. It determines our hope and dreams for ourselves, for all life, it is all-pervasive, everywhere. If one was to mention a singular common concept, a dignity that
Der vergebliche Kampf gegen die Zauberberg
atmosphäre.
Das Sanatorium, dieser sagenumwobene Ort, in dem Leben und Tod nahe beieinander liegen, in dem die Bewohnenden gleichzeitig ihre kranken Körper pflegen und den Geist in höhere Sphären wandern lassen, bildet einen eigenen Topos in der Literatur. Der beeindruckendste und einflussreichste Roman, der unser Bild von Sanatorien am nachhaltigsten geprägt hat, ist ohne Zweifel Thomas
Body alive with signals
Thomas Mann’s ‹Magic Mountain› (1924) was written partly in response to his experience as a guest at the Waldsanatorium in Davos, while his wife was receiving treatment there for a lung illness. Among several recurring themes in the book, one involves a series of meditations on the nature of time, another registers the emergence of
Wellness
Wellness, an odd word that splays itself across a broad range of ideas like a body-builder in an ill-fitting suit. It is essentially an adjective that has overextended itself into an unquantified noun. Unlike its sister-states-of-being – happiness, sadness and illness – the -nessing of the word «well» is quite unnecessary. There is no heroic metaphysical quest associated with
Fidus
The body is undressed to nature in twisting open, arms stretched in companionship with the sun and wind of the heavens. If one were speaking in Danish about treatment plans of the sanatoriums, one might refer to the activity of promoting «fresh air», the cure for tuberculosis, as a fidus. It is a term for
Lungers
Western North Carolina has been long well known for its climate, luring for many years a continuous stream of sick, infirm, and hypochondriac migrants into the region. During the late nineteenth century, as the tuberculosis epidemic was at its height, it was dubbed the «Land of the Sky» and then «Switzerland of America» by renowned
La Maison des vivants
Un matin d’hiver 1926, mon arrière-grand-père René Burnand, médecin spécialiste de la tuberculose et responsable du sanatorium populaire de Leysin reçoit une lettre de ses confrères de Genève. On l’informe que le Roi Fouad d’Égypte est à la recherche d’un candidat pour habiliter un hôpital chargé d’accueillir les patients tuberculeux de son pays (l’Égypte comptait
