Tuberculosis was once a widespread and deadly disease in America.  And at the heart of the effort to find a cure, was a village in Upstate New York. In this edition of Explore New York, Caitlin Landers shows us the place that was once considered a premier treatment center for TB.

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. -- Doctor Edward Livingston Trudeau came to Saranac Lake in the 1870s. He had tuberculosis, but his health improved in the Adirondacks. Trudeau settled in the village and established the first United States sanitorium built exclusively for tuberculosis research. 

"What Trudeau did here was really establish a place of hope for people who were suffering from the disease. And it became a world-famous center for tuberculosis treatment and also scientific research," said Historic Saranac Lake Executive Director Amy Catania.

More and more people came to the village seeking treatment -- more than the sanitorium could handle. Around that time, one in seven people were dying of tuberculosis. 

"People opened up their homes to them and there were hundreds of local homes who took in the tuberculosis patients and cared for them," said Catania.

Those houses were known as cure cottages. But decades later, there wasn't a need for them. 

"In the 1950s, successful antibiotics reduced the need for treatment of patients in Saranac Lake in the so-called 'cure the outdoor, the cold mountain air,'" said Trudeau Institute distinguished professor Emeritus Larry Johnson.  

And eventually, there wasn't a need for the sanitorium, so it shut down. 

"There were assets that were freed up then, that the gandson of E.L. Trudeau, Doctor Frank Trudeau, who himself was an medical doctor, decided to use to create the Trudeau Institute," said Johnson. 

The institute is not directly connected to the sanitorium, it studies a variety of diseases. But, there is still a need to study TB.

"It is not eradicated at all. It's not something that people in the United States worry a great deal about, but in the rest of the world it's still a very, very big problem," said Johnson.  

In America, we have Doctor Trudeau to thank in part, for why we aren't worried about it.