What were some of the treatments used in the 1920 for tb?

Answer 1

This was before antibiotics. TB of the lungs (TB can affect any part of the body, but when people talk about TB, they mostly mean TB of the lungs) was called Consumption or Galloping Consumption. People believed that it was due to an artistic or sensitive temperament.

Also, as microbiology was not well understood, it was believed that air that smelled bad made people ill. I am writing this so that you understand the reasons for the most usual treatments.

If the sufferer could afford treatment, they went to a clinic , usually in Switzerland or some other mountainous area, where they were kept at bedrest. They were wrapped up warmly and the beds would be put on an open verandah to get Fresh Air. The beds were equipped with canvas covers in case of rain. The patients were fed on a high protein diet, and that helped because a person who is poorly nourished is more susceptible to TB.

Then there was the Gold Treatment which was highly toxic. Robert Koch discovered that Gold Cyanide had killed TB bacilli in the laboratory but not in lab animals who had TB. Another medical researcher, Paul Ehrlich, believed in the antimicrobial effects of gold and the treatment was used quite extensively even though it damaged the kidneys and had all sort of toxic side effects. Gold treatment was abandoned once the drug Streptomycin became available.

So, there was a form of treatment available for those who could afford to go to clinics for a year or so at a time and have the "rest cure" as it was known. The other choice was the gold treatment. Both of these were for those able to afford them, but TB mostly affected the poor who were badly nourished and thus had fewer immune defences, and who lived in overcrowded conditions which made the disease spread like wildfire. They died, mostly.