Consumption in Mammoth Cave

season with gear tips and advice for heading outdoors. For fall hikes, when it's cold in

the morning and warm in the afternoon, layering becomes very important. You don't want to

get chilled and you don't want to sweat through your clothes either. A good rule of thumb

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start generating body heat, you won't get overly hot. For more tips, easy how-tos and

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The Kentucky countryside is dotted with rolling hills and trees, bluegrass and rivers, but

more than the natural landscape meets the eye. With at least 5,000 caves underground,

roadside signs boast the features of this cave or that. Brochures available at travel

stops tout one cave after another. Kentucky's most beautiful cave. A living, growing cave.

Cave and rock shop. Underground boat cave tour. The world's longest underground swinging

bridge. So the choices are many and varied, but most people come to this region for one

specific cave. Mammoth Cave. The longest known cave system in the world. Over 400 miles of

the cave have already been mapped, covering multiple levels, and that might be just the

tip of the iceberg. It is huge. Mammoth, one might say. But in addition to its labyrinth

of passageways and enormous rooms, it also holds some surprising and unique human history.

I'm Jason Epperson, and this week on America's National Parks, consumption in Mammoth Cave.

Inside Mammoth Cave, people notice that the air seems surprisingly fresh, and that their

allergies disappear like magic. Observations like this have been noted for many years,

centuries at least. The air exchange is surprisingly rapid within the cave, even at the lower depths,

and the climate is naturally well-controlled and consistent. By the 1830s, Mammoth Cave,

although more than 100 years away from being designated a national park, was already a

curiosity, and guided tours were already provided to the public at a fee. In 1839,

the property was purchased by Dr. John Krogan and entered into a most peculiar situation. While

still open for tours, Dr. Krogan devised a plan to use the cave for medical purposes.

Known as the White Plague, consumption, now called tuberculosis, was claiming lives in

the 1800s at an alarming pace, long before identification of the cause of the disease

or the antibiotics to treat it. It caused more deaths than any other disease, although less

common today, affecting 2.5 out of every 100,000 people. By the early 1800s, consumption had killed

nearly 15% of all the people who had ever lived. It was so prevalent in the United States and

Europe that it became an epidemic. Sanitary conditions were poor, even among the wealthy,

and there was no understanding of the cause, no widely understood prevention,

no successful treatment, let alone a cure. It was thought to be hereditary or constitutional

rather than contagious. Very few people survived the disease, and those who did,

suffered repeated bouts, causing permanent disability.

Based on the belief that rest and a healthy climate could cure the disease, Dr. Krogan,

a wealthy physician who later died of consumption himself, decided to capitalize on the perceived

healthful climate provided by Mammoth Cave. He tasked some of his enslaved individuals with

building a residential treatment center in the cool, clean air of the cave that remained at a

crisp, unwavering 54 degrees. The sanatorium movement was still four decades in the future,

but it was hypothesized that perhaps isolating patients might help stem the spread of the

disease, and people were hopeful that good air, good food, and a peaceful place to rest

might provide the cure. In total, two stone cabins and eight wooden huts were constructed

about a mile inside of Mammoth Cave, with floating wood floors and canvas roofs. Krogan

then drew up plans for a hotel-type structure to be built underground for the hordes of

consumption patients who would flock to his new treatment center, and pay a hefty sum,

for the chance to be cured. In 1842, 16 patients were brought down inside Mammoth Cave, paying

for the privilege of the experimental underground treatment, desperate for a cure as they wasted

away from the disease. The medical understanding of the day centered around humors, balancing

cold and heat, and dry air and damp. The patients left behind their families, their property,

and their jobs, if in fact they still had been well enough to work. They spent their

entire days and nights in the cold, damp cave. They slept in their cabins, and Krogan's

slaves prepared and delivered their meals. The patients were free to roam parts of the

cave, sometimes encountering the paying guests and tour groups while wandering in their hospital

gowns. The goal was quite optimistic, for the patients to stay inside Mammoth Cave until

they were well enough to leave, to resume their former lives, to be restored fully to

good health. Krogan's premise might have been wild, but maybe it was no more unorthodox

or dangerous by today's standards than many of the purported cures used on patients in

the 1800s, inhaling toxins like hemlock and turpentine, bleeding and purging patients.

Neither these procedures nor the less dangerous methods of cod liver oil and vinegar massages

produced results. Vast numbers of people continued to succumb to the disease. When a select few

were given the opportunity to recuperate and rehabilitate in the confines of Mammoth Cave,

willingly partook. They were hopeful that they would, in fact, recover and return to society.

The experiment was not exactly a resounding success. Not only is the quality of Mammoth's

air not a cure for consumption, in the days before battery-powered devices,

they had to light fires to see and keep warm. After all, the casual visitor needs a sweatshirt

in the cave while hiking through the passages. In the closed confines of Mammoth Cave,

without sufficient ventilation, a large fire was maintained at all times, exacerbated by the lamps

the patients kept lit at all hours, because it was dark during the day as well as at night.

The soot and fumes from the fires compounded the pulmonary damage to the consumption patients.

Despite the promise of the early weeks in the cave, the patients did not experience

a miraculous recovery. When five of the 16 patients died, perhaps even sooner than they

would have otherwise, the surviving patients were brought back to the surface. Not surprisingly,

the project was abandoned. Most of the remaining patients died soon after their return to their

homes. Dr. John Krogan died several years later. Some sources say that he had consumption at the

time he developed his idea of a subterranean consumption treatment center inside of Mammoth.

Others speculate that he actually contracted tuberculosis during his time there with his

patients. By the 1880s, long after John Krogan's death, the sanatorium movement gained momentum

and respect. Perhaps Krogan was a visionary, a man ahead of his time. Or perhaps he was innovative,

trying new ideas because the existing ones just weren't working. Or perhaps he was simply greedy

and hoped to make some easy money off his consumption project. But he wasn't known as a

conman, and he was a respected physician who had been searching for a treatment and hopeful cure

for consumption prior to undertaking his venture. Mammoth Cave National Park is about an hour

outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It remains the largest cave in the world and is preserved by

the National Park Service for its remarkable characteristics. It's not a highly decorated cave,

the sandstone cap that forms its roof, in a sense, controls the water seepage and cave

formations. Most of it is not an unending display of stalactites, stalagmites, cave popcorn, and

cave bacon. It's a compound of massive rooms with high ceilings of long, narrow passages,

a sense of enormity. The cave system itself continues to expand over time as explorers

discover connecting passageways. Caves can only be considered connected if a person can transit

between them. A pinhole with a drip between the caves doesn't count. The cave is so massive that

the park offers a variety of cave tours that feature different parts of the cave or different

aspects of the stories and history that pique the interest of visitors. Krogan's stone cabins can

still be seen on the extended historic tour. The wooden cabins no longer exist.

When visitors exit the cave, they have to walk through a soapy solution on a kind of rug. This

is to prevent spreading white-nose syndrome, a disease afflicting many bat colonies throughout

the country. In many caves, such as those at Craters of the Moon National Monument,

visitors aren't allowed to wear anything into the caves that have been in other caves to prevent

bringing white-nose disease in. But at Mammoth Cave, the disease is already there, prevalent

even, and the park has lost up to 90 percent of its bat population. So if you visit Mammoth,

it's prudent to take care that your shoes and jackets get washed before wearing them into

another cave. Just keep track of what you wore when you visited so you know when you visit another

cave not to wear it in. The soapy rug solution helps, but it's not bulletproof. For those worried

about the safety of touring down into one of these deep caves, the rangers explain that although

no inspections are required for caves aside from OSHA regulations for man-made structures

like staircases, established caves are considered very stable. Experienced cavers at maintained

caves watch for natural events like floods and earthquakes, and also human interventions like

vandalism. Caves such as Mammoth Cave that are visited daily by trained cavers are safest

because the staff would notice changes and issue alerts, and they have thorough evacuation

procedures in place in case of an emergency. Aside from the namesake cave, the park offers

a plethora of other activities. Hikes range from short boardwalk trails to steep sinkhole trails

and longer day hikes. There is as much to see above ground as beneath it. The park is heavily

forested and wildflowers abound. The wooded land of Mammoth Cave National Park isn't old

forest, but second growth forest planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 30s and 40s.

The Green River and Nolan River flow through the park, offering opportunities for fishing,

canoeing, and kayaking. Horseback riding and bicycle trails are also available.

The park lodge and restaurants have been closed for renovations, but should reopen later this year.

The park has three campgrounds as well as backcountry campsites, and there are hotels

nearby in the area outside the park. For an off-the-beaten-path excursion, the park offers

the Wandering Woods Tour that takes tourists to a part of the park that was acquired in the 1990s,

adjacent to the original park boundaries, replete with its own small, highly decorated cave.

A trip to Mammoth Cave National Park can be combined with other National Park Service sites

in the area. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park is less than an hour away and has

memorial, a replica of the cabin where he was born, and his early boyhood Kentucky home,

as well as some fun facts about Lincoln and his family. Once you're on the Trail of Abraham

Lincoln, the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial is about two hours away over the Indiana Line,

and features six large relief sculptures of important milestones in his life,

and a trail marked with stones from events in Lincoln's history.

This episode of America's National Parks was written by Lauren Eisenberg Davis.

I'm your host, Jason Epperson, and if you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a rating and

a review. If you're new here, make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get new episodes

delivered to your feed. If you're looking for photos and tips about visiting national parks,

check out our America's National Parks Facebook group, and if you're interested in RV travel,

we hope you'll also check out the RV Miles podcast and YouTube channel. Today's show

is sponsored by L.L. Bean. Follow the hashtag, Be an Outsider,

and visit LLBean.com to find great gear for exploring the national parks.