Figure 1.--This photos we believe were taken during the 1920s. Its show children hospitalized at the Leysin sanatorium in the French-speaking Swiss Canton of Vaud. The boys wear only brief, loose fitting underwear as part of the clinical treatment was to exposed them as much as possible to fresh air and sunshine. A Swiss reader writes, "No worry about these children! Around 12 until 3 in the afternoon under the sun it is not chilly. These children would not stay outdoors an extended time."

Sanatoria clothing varied among institutions and over time. The iniitial imopetus from German doctors was toi exposed patients to as much fresh air and sunshine as possible. Thus we see patients laying in beds on verandas, without any clothing or minimal clothing. Of course, people, especially children, can not lay around all day long. And we see boys wearing a varirty of brief pants-like garmnents. Some look like rompers. Others look rather like diapers. And we see some that look like brief underwear, covering the front and back with a connectig band. Some girls today wear this style of underpants. We see the romper-style pants also being worn at schools, including Swiss schools set in sites like those selected for sanatoria. We are usure why such unique, specialized garments were adopted by the sanatoria and wondered why the boys just did not wear short pants. A British doctor writes, "I was also puzzled by this. The only thought I had was that they might be suffering from renal and bladder tuberclosis, but it was not a disease I encountered when I was doing paediatrics. I only came across this variety of tuberculosis in adults, but then I was post anti-biotics. My patients would have contracted the disease in pre-antibiotic days." As far as we can tell, these destinctive pants seems to be a general approach st the sans, rather than focused on specific individuals and conditions. The only reason we can think of is that the sans pants were generally more 'airy;' as opposed to wearing short pants and underwear. But some san pants whilke short lokk to be rather thick and closed which would be les 'airy' than light-weight short pants. And in the late-19th and early-20th centuries when many sanatoiria were opened, knee pants were very long and worn with underwear. We suspect that these san pants were adopted during this period and becanme an accepted tradition even whenlighter-weiht anbd shortre pahnts became more common after World War I. And of course short pants were worn ith underwear, unlike the various types of san pants. A reader writes,"For such ill children to be seen in photographs wearing so little clothes in cold conditions left me wondering how tough must these ill children have been." A factor here is that kids seem to feel cold differentky then adults. We notice children in northern lattitudes (such as Britain), for example, hapily playing in cold water that their parents and teachers would find less enjouable.

Created: 1:42 AM 4/14/2012
Last update: 6:04 AM 4/15/2012