Lore - Episode 77: Withering Heights

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

Waves of illness crash against the shores of humanity. They always have, and they probably always will. But we weather the storm through advancements in medical science and the resilience of human nature. Still, no matter how hard we’ve tried, some outbreaks have left a dark stain on the pages of history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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When the mummified body of a prehistoric man was discovered in Kaston Ice in the Alps of Northern Italy back in 1991, it was like stumbling upon a 5,000 year old time capsule. Along with his remarkably preserved body, the Iceman also introduced researchers to well preserved examples of prehistoric clothing, weapons, and tools. And something else. It was a lump of organic matter about the size of a walnut

that had been strung onto a leather strap to keep it safe. After getting the unusual object under a microscope, microbiologists realized what it was. A fungus known as Piptoporus vettulinus. And this fungus has an amazing property. It contains essential oils that kill off parasitic bacteria. For a prehistoric hunter traveling through all sorts of harsh environments and eating anything he could find,

this fungus would have acted as a sort of antibiotic. Humans, it seems, have been medicating themselves for millennia. And while the reasons have always been the same, to relieve the symptoms of illness and disease, those tools of medicine have varied greatly over the years. Every new wave of sickness has driven us to find better solutions, fresh cures, and powerful weapons with which to fight back. So when a fresh wave of disease swept across America in the late 1800s,

one community decided to use every tool at their disposal. The solution they proposed would lean heavily on both social compassion and the power of 19th century medicine. It was their last stand against a disease that was killing so many people. And that desperation meant that no option was left off the table, however drastic it might be. And honestly, it's hard to blame them. But when the experiment ended five decades later, it was far from a success.

In fact, while countless lives were saved, they were paid for with blood. Fighting back, it seems, can often lead to horrific results. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. The White Plague They called it the White Plague. It can be found in historical records dating back thousands of years from the ancient Near East and India, China, and Africa. Classical writers such as the Greek physician Hippocrates

and the historian Heronitis all mentioned it within their body of work. Every culture had a name for it, and all of them met roughly the same thing. Death from within. When European culture moved into the 19th century, the illness became sort of a romantic focal point and took on the poetic title of the White Plague. But it was easy for those who remain untouched by its effects to paint it so lovingly. To many, it was just another disease, one they called consumption.

Today, in the modern age of information, we refer to it by its scientific name, tuberculosis. But you can dress a disease up in any clothing you want, be it romantic or Gothic or utterly modern, and it still wouldn't change how powerful it is. Whatever people were calling it, tuberculosis was devastating, and as urban population growth exploded across England and America in the mid-19th century, this silent killer expanded with it. But consumption did more than make people sick and kill them.

It consumed hope. There was a palpable fear in the air, spreading as fast as any infectious disease, and people were desperate for a solution. So with an eye toward how contagious this sickness was, they proposed a new idea, humane isolation. It was an idea that had been proposed by an English physician named George Boddington in 1840, but while his own facility never came to fruition, the idea spread, quickly reaching America. And one of the first places it was put into action was a location in Kentucky known as Mammoth Cave. Mammoth Cave happened to be owned by a physician named Dr. John Krogan,

and he saw it as the perfect setting for healing. Caves have a tendency to maintain a constant internal temperature, and with a wide opening supplying the interior with fresh air, Krogan felt that tuberculosis patients could only benefit. In late October of 1842, he transported 15 patients to the cave and set each of them up in small stone huts. Those who were able would share meals together while the rest stayed in their little homes, resting and hoping.

It was rustic living with a goal of recovery. The experiment didn't last very long, though. By early February, two of the 15 patients had died from the disease. The remaining 13 packed up and went home, and over the following three weeks, they each slowly died as well. Even the project's mastermind himself, Dr. Krogan, couldn't escape the grasping hands of tuberculosis, dying six years later at his home, 90 miles to the north in Louisville.

It would take another 60 years, but eventually someone else in Louisville tried implementing the idea of an entire facility devoted to the care of tuberculosis patients. With the city positioned right in the wetlands of the Ohio River, it was in a sort of horrible sweet spot for the spread of the disease, which is why, in 1910, a fresh outbreak began to take lives. In response, an open-air hospital was built with a goal of caring for the sick, but a year later, plans changed and the location was moved south of the city

into the hills of the Kentucky countryside. It was there that the hospital planners purchased the land that had long been known as Waverly Hills, named by a young schoolteacher in the 1880s after a series of novels by Sir Walter Scott. When the first Waverly Hills Sanatorium opened its doors in December of 1912, the physicians had a lot of hope. With open-air environments and room for over 40 patients, it was the perfect location to care for the sick. Two years later, another 50 beds were added,

but as the years went by, that initial hope was giving way to creeping despair. There simply wasn't enough room for everyone who needed their help. So, funds were raised and construction began on a new, larger, more modern facility. It would take them nearly three years to complete it, but when it was finished in 1926, the new Waverly Hills Sanatorium was an impressive beacon of hope. At five stories tall, the new facility boasted room for over 400 patients. Surely, that would be enough, right? Sadly, that wouldn't be the case.

As the gears went by, more and more buildings were added to the original, expanding the hospital's capacity and ability to help. But while their intentions were good, some of the methods they used in the service of that goal were much less humane than we might imagine. Modern medicine was offering the doctors there a fresh batch of new treatments. And just as humans have done for thousands of years, Waverly Hills was quick to put those new tools to the test. Still, no one fully expected just how many tools would need testing.

And with all that experimenting came a multitude of pain. Pain and so much blood. In the 1920s, our understanding of tuberculosis was far from complete. People understood it correctly as an infectious disease and that it focused on the lungs in most patients. But as far as treating it went, well, the medical profession was still in the dark. What they were fully aware of, though, was the destructive path the disease carved through each new victim.

The infection would set off a chain reaction inside the body of each patient. Breathing would become difficult, even painful. And this would often be accompanied by violent fits of coughing. And it was common for those fits to produce blood. As you might expect from any sort of infection in the body, fever was also common, as was digestive issues. It was the weight loss and fatigue that earned the disease the common name of consumption. And it was also the most visible sign that caretakers can see.

Tuberculosis was clearly gaining ground if the sick person was withering away day after day. In the age before x-rays and MRIs, it was hard to argue with proof you could see with your own two eyes. And this, of course, was at the root of the New England Vampire Panic, which spanned the century between the 1790s and the 1890s. All built on the unusual belief that families and communities were plagued by this wasting disease were actually victims of dark forces feeding on them from the grave.

Stop and think about that for a moment. Tuberculosis was such a devastating disease that supernatural folklore was a natural lens to view it through. Thankfully, as the 20th century picked up steam, so too did modern medical science. There were new ideas about what caused the sickness to spread, and with them came possible new solutions for the infected. For the first time, people had ways of fighting back.

At the ground level, the spread of the disease needed to be stopped, so patients were isolated in places like Waverly Hills Sanatorium. No matter a person's age or place in life, once they were diagnosed with the disease, they were removed from society. Families were often pulled apart, with a parent or child taken away from the rest of their loved ones and kept in isolation.

It was also believed that fresh air and sunlight could be effective against the disease, and after all, that's why Waverly Hills and so many other sanatoriums like it were built high up in elevated places. Because of this, it was also believed that patients would be left to sit for hours inside open-air sunrooms, which admittedly sounds great if the weather is 75 and breezy,

but this practice was maintained even in the dead of winter. The Waverly Hills physicians weren't content to let the fresh air of the Kentucky hillside do all the work for them, though. Patients who didn't recover fast enough were often left at the mercy of new experimental techniques that were born out of noble intentions, but carried horrible prices,

and almost all of them began with the lungs. One of the ideas wasn't actually new. Developed in 1891 by a French surgeon, the technique known as the plumbage thoracoplasty was a surgical attempt to intentionally collapse a lung with the hopes that it would force the body to heal faster. To do this, surgeons would cut away a piece of a rib, deflate the lung, and then fill the space with, well, stuff.

While lead bullets were the original filler, time led to other materials, such as animal fat, pieces of bone, wax, silk, and even plastic balls. Another object often inserted into the lungs of patients at Waverly Hills was a balloon. Known as balloon dilation, surgeons would open up a patient's chest and place inflatable bags into the infected areas. It was meant to relieve the pain and pressure

associated with breathing, but it often came with complications. Instead, another practice was implemented to get rid of the tight-chested feeling that tuberculosis created. Surgeons at the hospital would literally remove the muscle and ribs that protected the infected lung. In theory, this gave the patient a bit more room to breathe, but it was a horribly destructive procedure, and it was used only as a last resort.

No matter what treatments were employed, though, there was always one common element underlying almost every aspect of life inside Waverly Hills. Death. Whether it was brought on solely by the symptoms of the disease itself or due to complications from the various treatments used, death was in the cards for a good percentage of the patients. As always, the march of modern medicine rarely misses a beat.

In 1943, while patients were being locked away inside the walls of Waverly Hills and experiencing the worst of experimental procedures, something miraculous happened. An antibacterial treatment was discovered with the potential to cure a number of bacterial infections, and one of those was tuberculosis. As a result, the number of new TB cases

began to dwindle year after year. By 1961, the total population of sick had dropped to a level that simply didn't make sense to house in a massive facility like Waverly Hills, and so the patients were moved and the doors were closed. Like a lot of very large buildings, the facility experienced a second life. Waverly Hills became Woodhaven Geriatric Center,

with that closed two decades later. Since then, the property has bounced around from owner to owner like a sort of real estate version of hot potato. But if the stories are true, the building is far from empty. The past is like a shadow, following us wherever we go, and that was no less true for John Lewis Griggs.

He was a 52-year-old ex-con who had been released in January of 1954 from Kentucky State Reformatory in nearby LaGrange, and Waverly Hills was his chance at a fresh start. He'd found religion in prison, he said, and he wanted to leave the past behind him. He had worked there for weeks as an orderly when the darkness caught up with him. Another orderly, a man named Edwin Barris,

apparently took offense to the former convict's presence. On the afternoon of March 1st, Barris approached Griggs with the smell of alcohol on his breath and threatened to kill the ex-con with a knife. Griggs, to his credit, shrugged it off. He told Barris that he was a new man and just wanted to live a good life, and even though Barris slapped him to provoke a fight,

Griggs ignored it. Instead, he went to his quarters to take a nap, and that's when Barris made his move. Sometimes shortly before 7 p.m., Barris and an accomplice entered Griggs' room and began to beat the sleeping man, and that snapped something inside of Griggs, who jumped from his bed and fought back.

He tossed Barris into the hallway like a rag doll, and when the younger man got back up, Griggs leveled him with a punch to the jaw. Rather than walk away, though, Griggs reportedly stomped on Barris as he lay on the floor. Then, he stood on the man's chest and began to jump up and down, sometimes landing on his ribs, other times landing on his face.

When he was finished, a pool of blood covered the hallway floor. Barris was dead. Somehow, that darkness that Griggs had tried so hard to run away from had managed to catch back up with him. Maybe it was just a classic case of old habits dying hard, or perhaps the shadows of Waverly Hills held some sway over him. If the stories are true, those shadows still roam the halls today.

There are almost as many stories about unusual experiences inside the walls of Waverly Hills as there are hallways and half-open doors. Some have come down to us over the years from teenagers and adventure seekers who have stepped inside looking for a thrill, while others have been taken by surprise. Either way, they become part of the common folklore

surrounding the building. Visitors to Waverly Hills have reported things that might sound at home inside any other supposedly haunted location. Doors that seem to swing shut on their own, the echo of voices from distant parts of the hospital, a sound of children on the playground, screaming with laughter,

or something else. Others have seen figures throughout the facility. One common sighting is a man in a white lab coat, often referred to as the doctor. He's been seen in the dining hall and is sometimes accompanied by the smell of freshly baked bread. And like many other abandoned hospitals,

there are tales of a ghostly child who wanders from room to room. Many visitors claim to have witnessed the spirit of an elderly woman walking the halls. Her wrists are said to be chained together, with blood dripping from her hands, and she calls out to them, begging for help.

The most frightening visions by far, though, have been the ones with the least amount of detail. Many visitors have seen what can only be described as shadow people, dark clouds that move like humans across open doorways and around the corners at the ends of halls. These shadowy figures almost seem to crawl,

sometimes on the walls, sometimes on the ceiling. And while they might not have distinguishable features, they always leave witnesses with an overwhelming feeling of dread and fear. However spread out across the facility these sightings might be, it's still all a lot to take in. Which is why one room in particular

is such a powerful location. Because it's there, so many of these elements all seem to come together. Countless stories painted as the central spot at Waverly Hills, and it's hard to argue. From shadowy figures and visions of a dead woman to other worldly voices and cries of anguish, room 502 has it all.

And there may be a good reason why. A legend says that a nurse took her own life in that very same room back in 1928. There are a variety of stories about the reasons behind her suicide, ranging from hopelessness over an unwanted pregnancy to murder at the hands of one of the doctors. Whatever the cause might have been,

her story came to an end right there. In room 502. Even the staff, it seems, could not escape the darkness of Waverly Hills. Today we've pushed tuberculosis into the corner, along with other infectious diseases. But it's not gone, and we would be foolish to assume so. In fact, TB is still an active killer

in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Asia. And thanks to nearly a century of exposure to antibiotics, TB has started to mutate, becoming even harder to treat. To most, though, tuberculosis is a distant memory. Something much of the Western world never really stops to consider, let alone fear.

And yet, its effects have altered history. For example, some people have made the case that without tuberculosis, we most likely wouldn't have the darkness of Edgar Allan Poe, whose mother and wife were both taken from him by the disease. And it was his pain that fueled his art.

Heck, without an outbreak of tuberculosis in Exeter Road Island back in the 1890s, we might not even have Brahms Stoker's Dracula. Tragedy has always inspired people to rise above the shadows and aim for something higher. Maybe that's the silver lining beneath the dark cloud of TB.

But it also took countless lives. At Waverly Hills alone, some people have proposed that the total number of deaths succeeded 60,000, but there are no records to back up that claim. We do know that hundreds died each year. Some from the treatments they voluntarily underwent and others from the illness itself.

They were taken up to the heights of the Kentucky countryside and then just withered away. One more detail. There's a large tunnel that runs from the foot of the hill to the facility up top. When it was constructed in 1926,

the tunnel's original purpose was to serve as a ventilation shaft for the boilers down below. There was even a small track system installed to allow for supplies to be transported up the shaft rather than forcing deliveries to make the trek on foot. The hospital staff also found the tunnel

to be useful, though, especially in the winter, when the snow was deep and the winds were cold and piercing. The warm, steady climb up the cement tunnel was the perfect alternative to hiking a small mountain each day. One side even had stairs.

Honestly, it was perfectly built for pedestrian traffic. But as the years wore on and the death toll ticked higher and higher, the hospital staff found another use for that underground passageway. You see, along with fresh air and sunlight, the physicians at Waverly Hills

believed their patients needed hope and positive attitudes to truly heal. The last thing a patient needed to see from their window was the corpse of a friend being carried away. So the ventilation tunnel took on new life as a highway for the dead.

Rather than carry the corpses of TB victims out the front or back door where the still living might happen to see them, each new body was wrapped up and taken deep beneath the facility. Then it was placed on a cart, lowered secretly to the bottom of the hill.

As a result, that old ventilation shaft took on a less optimistic name. The Body Shoot The real story of Waverly Hills isn't one of haunted hallways and paranormal investigations. It's a tale of suffering,

death, isolation and hopelessness. And that's what makes it a place of darkness more than anything else. I get it, trust me. Over the years, the facility has played host to countless sightings and unexplainable events.

It's attractive in a dark and gloomy sort of way. But in the end, whether or not we believe those stories takes the backseat to a much larger truth. We, as human beings, are very good at creating

darkness. And then, we have to find a way to live with it. The Body Shooter The Body Shooter The Body Shooter The Body Shooter The Body Shooter

The Body Shooter This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research help from Marseille Crockett and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season

of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging

from bite-sized episodes to season long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on, all over in one central place. TheWorldOfLore.com slash now. Follow the show on Facebook, Twitter,

and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.