Following the shift in therapy of tuberculosis in the mid-19th century, by
the beginning of the 20th century numerous tuberculosis sanatoria were
established in Western Europe. Being an institutional novelty in the medical
practice, sanatoria spread within the first 20 years of the 20th century to
Central and Eastern Europe, including the southern region of the Panonian
plain, the present-day Province of Vojvodina in Serbia north of the rivers
Sava and Danube. The health policy and regulations of the newly built state -
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians/Yugoslavia, provided a rather
liberal framework for introducing the concept of sanatorium. Soon after the
World War I there were 14 sanatoria in this region, and the period of their
expansion was between 1920 and 1939 when at least 27 sanatoria were founded,
more than half of the total number of 46 sanatoria in the whole state in that
period. However, only two of these were for pulmonary diseases. One of them
was privately owned the open public sanatorium the English-Yugoslav Hospital
for Paediatric Osteo-Articular Tuberculosis in Sremska Kamenica, and the
other was state-run (at Iriski venac, on the Fruska Gora mountain, as a unit
of the Department for Lung Disease of the Main Regional Hospital). All the
others were actually small private specialized hospitals in 6 towns (Novi
Sad, Subotica, Sombor, Vrbas, Vrsac, Pancevo,) providing medical treatment of
well-off, mostly gynaecological and surgical patients. The majority of
sanatoria founded in the period 1920-1939 were in or close to the city of
Novi Sad, the administrative headquarters of the province (the Danube
Banovina at that time) with a growing population. A total of 10 sanatoria
were open in the city of Novi Sad, with cumulative bed capacity varying from
60 to 130. None of these worked in newly built buildings, but in private
houses adapted for medical purpose in accordance with legal requirements. The
decline of sanatoria in Vojvodina began with the very outbreak of the World
War II and they never regained their social role. Soon after the Hungarian
fascist occupation the majority of owners/ founders were terrorized and
forced to close their sanatoria, some of them to leave country and some were
even killed or deported to concentration camps.
70 Years of English-Yugoslav children hospital for osteoarticular tuberculosis in Sremska Kamenica