Biloxi Sanatorium promised to be good for whatever ailed you
Pictured is the cover of a 16-page illustrated booklet describing the new Biloxi Sanatorium, a health resort that began receiving patients in July 1902.
Ten-thousand copies were sent to the most prominent physicians and medical journals throughout the United States. The sanatorium stood on a 10-acre beachfront tract where Chateau Le Grand stands today.
In the words of the Biloxi Daily Herald, the sanatorium treated “every ill that human flesh is heir to.”
It offered treatments that were considered state of the art in 1902. It also included a Marine Department for “seafaring men.”
Charles M. Jones, the Chandeleur Islands assistant lighthouse keeper who was suffering from malaria, became one of the first patients, and the new X-ray machine was used on a Pascagoula child who swallowed a pin.
In 1903, the sanatorium expanded to include a nursing school where students could study, graduate and receive a diploma. Later, the sanatorium underwent a makeover and became the Biloxi Hotel. It was torn down in the 1920s and by 1928 the New Biloxi Hotel stood in its place.
Murella H. Powell, a local historian, writes the weekly Flashback column.
Do you have a local photograph to submit to Flashback? It can be of any subject or event in the Coast’s distant or recent past. Please send a description with your name, address and daytime phone number to Flashback, the Sun Herald, P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi MS 39535; or call 896-2424; or email living@sunherald.com.
This story was originally published July 2, 2016 at 11:59 PM with the headline "Biloxi Sanatorium promised to be good for whatever ailed you."