Description

Opened on February 17 1929 the Mississippi State Preventorium operated continuously until 1976 The Mississippi Preventorium like similar hospitals throughout the country was an institution for sickly anemic and underweight children It was established on the grounds of the Mississippi State Tuberculosis Sanitorium in the early years of the twentieth century when tuberculosis was a dreaded disease worldwide The TB Sanitorium hospital housed those with tuberculosis offering refuge for patients of all ages afflicted with the pernicious and contagious disease Although located on the same medical campus the preventorium was a separate medical institution for children no children with TB were admitted in the sixtyyear run of the hospital The namepreventoriummeant a place of preventing disease as there was a fear of sickly children contracting TB The Mississippi Preventorium was one of the last if not the very last of these special hospitals for children