Trudeau, Edward Livingston

Trudeau, Edward Livingston

(tro͞o`dō), 1848–1915, American physician, b. New York City, M.D. Columbia, 1871. As a result of taking care of his brother, who had tuberculosis, he developed the disease. He went to live in the Adirondacks, spending much time in the open, and regained his health. Seeking to aid others suffering from tuberculosis, he founded (1884) at Saranac Lake the Trudeau Sanatorium, where he employed the open-air treatment of the disease and organized (1894) the first laboratory for the study of tuberculosis. The sanatorium closed in 1954 for lack of patients, modern methods of early diagnosis and of treatment having drastically reduced incidence of the disease.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (1916); biography by K. E. Harrod (1960); L. Brown et al., Edward Livingston Trudeau: A Symposium (1935).

Trudeau, Edward Livingston

(1848–1915) physician; born in New York City. He switched to medicine from the navy after nursing his brother who died of tuberculosis (1868), graduating from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons (1871). In 1873, ill with tuberculosis himself, he recuperated seven years in the Adirondack Mountains (New York); remaining there to practice medicine and study tuberculosis, he founded the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium (later famous as the Trudeau Sanitarium) at Saranac Lake (1884). In 1894 he established the Saranac Laboratory, the first such to study tuberculosis and where he was the first American physician to conduct experiments for tuberculosis immunity. He died of tuberculosis, as did his daughter before him, and the Trudeau Sanitarium closed in 1957, thanks to new antituberculosis therapy which his contributions helped to advance.