PASADENA 
AS A SANITARIUM 
BY 
W. M. CHAMBERLAIN, M. D. View of Sierra Madre Mountains and Pasadena, from Raymond Hotel. PASADENA 
AS A SANITARIUM 
BY 
W. M. CHAMBERLAIN, M. D. 
CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO CHABITY HOSPITAL, N. Y., ETC. 
REPRINTED FROM THE 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PRACTITIONER 
SEPTEMBER, 1887 
NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1888 PASADENA AS A SANITARIUM/ 
The chain of great mountains extending from southeast 
to northwest-from Bear Valley to San Fernando Tunnel- 
is known by the general name of the Sierra Madre. It is 
the link which connects the Coast Range with the greater 
range of the Sierra Nevada. It is about seventy miles long. 
Its peaks-San Antonio (Baldy), Cucamonga, San Fernan- 
do-are from 7,000 to 9,000 feet high, and the intervening 
crest line from 4,000 to 6,000 feet. It is mainly of granite 
rock, often much calcined and metamorphosed by reheat- 
ing. It is not a simple and single line, but a mass of 
mountains having the same general strike or trend. It 
presents to us at Pasadena its almost precipitous wall, scant- 
ily covered with sage-brush and shrubs. Almost all the 
day the blazing sunlight rests upon its innumerable ridges, 
often bare, and the green ravines which divide them. Wind- 
ing through and down its many canons come the streams 
which feed the life and beauty of the plains below. It 
rises like a barrier between the arid desert on the eastward 
and the seaward slope of Los Angeles County. It shuts off 
the desert winds which, sometimes cold and sometimes not, 
are always dry and withering. It reflects the warmth of 
the southern and western sun. It arrests and condenses 
* The writer is indebted to Dr. 0. H. Congar, Abbot Kinney, Esq., and 
Hon. B. S. Eaton, of Pasadena, for details presented. 4 
the water-laden clouds which the trade-winds bring from 
the warm south sea ; and is the determining cause of the 
diurnal movement of the land and sea breezes. After sun- 
set the cooled air begins to flow down from the mountains 
toward the sea ; by the middle of the forenoon the heated 
air rises along the face of the mountains, and the sea-tem- 
pered air moves mountainward to fill the vacuum. Rarely 
does either current become more than a gentle breeze of 
from four to six miles per hour. After sunrise and after 
sunset come two or more hours of neutralized currents, 
when the chimney smokes go straight upward, and one 
may carry an unshaded and unshaken flame whither he 
will. One who will be quiet, may have, from 11 to 3, what 
temperature he may choose. The mercury may stand at 
110° on the outward face of the southern piazza, and at 78° 
on the outward face of the northern piazza. 
Between the Sierra Madre and the coast, and, in a gen- 
eral way, parallel to both, is an often interrupted range of 
lower hills, called, as they go from the west to the east, the 
Santa Monica, Cahuenga, Verdugo, Arroyo, and San Jose 
Hills ; and between them and the Sierra Madre is inclosed 
the wide and beautiful valley of the San Gabriel River and 
its upland terrace or bench. Pasadena, which lies in the an- 
gle between the Arroyo and the Sierra Madre, is separated 
from the general San Gabriel Valley by a terrace about one 
hundred feet high at its western end, and slowly merging 
into the general plain as it goes eastward. 
Pasadena, with its outlying districts of South Pasadena, 
Olivewood, Lamanda Park, Sierra Madre, and Monk's Hill, 
covers about twenty square miles. 
SOIL. 
The soil is a gray gravel more or less mixed with a 
brown loam. It is light and porous, the waters go down 
and come up through it. It is said, on good authority, that 5 
there are large springs on the summits of the Sierra Madre 
which must be fed by the waters of the far off Sierra Ne- 
vada. The surface drainage is small but the ground water 
is near ; for in many places good wells are easily made, 
and the plains and hillsides here and there are studded with 
great oaks and sycamores, which go on in perennial growth 
through dry and wet years ; and the groves and avenues 
of eucalyptus-trees show some trunks a hundred feet high, 
grown from slips or seed in ten or twelve years. The soil 
produces freely all kinds of trees and fruits belonging to 
the sub-tropical and temperate zones. The apple and the 
apricot, the cabbage and the cactus, the grape and the 
guava, the oak and the olive, the pine and the palm, flour- 
ish side by side, each almost as well as in its native habitat. 
WATER. 
The water hardly appears in its natural channels. As 
it comes down from the mountain ravines it is drawn off in 
open ditches and in pipes, and distributed for irrigation 
and domestic use. One learns the use and beauty of water 
here in a way and a measure which is seldom known in the 
East, for here the supply seems insufficient, yet there is 
more of it now than there used to be, and it is said to be 
capable of still further large development, by tunneling 
the hills, and artesian wells on the plains. The pressure in 
Pasadena is sufficient to carry it to the top of the highest 
buildings on the highest lands which are occupied. In its 
sensible properties it is tasteless, inodorous, clear, lustrous, 
free from gas, and of natural temperature. Analysis shows 
it to be a considerably mineralized water, containing enough 
of the alkaline salts to make it, in common parlance, rather 
hard. It carries 18'9 grains of solid matter to the wine 
gallon and would seem to be a feeble counterpart to the 
Carlsbad waters, as will be seen by the following com- 
parison : 6 
Analysis. 
By Ragsky.- 
Spradel Spring, 
Carlsbad, Bo- 
hemia. * 
By Hilgard.-Uni- 
versity California. 
Sierra Madre 
water. + 
Total of salts in wine gallon 
Grains. 
361'00 
Grains. 
18-9 
Sulphate and chloride of sodium 
229-63 
9-11 
Carbonate of sodium 
90-00 
0'4 
( lime ) 
Carbonates of •< magnesia > 
27-62 
9-4 
( silica... ) 
Sulphate of lime 
11-00 
o-o 
Phosphates, fluorides, etc ) 
4-75 
o-o 
Iron, strontium, etc j 
Total 
361-00 
18-9 
Thus the principal salts are the same, and the ratio of 
their distribution and of the total mineralization is, rough- 
ly, as 20 :1. Clinically, the water seems to be "deobstru- 
ent," i. e., it is very slightly laxative and diuretic, but not 
to such a degree as to be noticed by those who are accus- 
tomed to it. It does not produce increase of urination in 
the diabetic or in the earlier stages of Bright's disease. 
Organic contamination will be found in it if it is taken 
from the open ditches or from vegetating reservoirs, but is 
not found in that which is piped direct from the source. 
The latter condition will soon be general in Pasadena. 
BAINFALL. 
The rainfall varies greatly in different years. The 
highest recorded is forty-seven inches in 1884 ; the lowest 
is five inches in 1876. Eighteen inches is considered a fair 
supply and is about the actual average. The rain falls 
largely at night. It is rare to see more than four rainy 
* Reference, " Handbook of Medical Science." 
f Letter from Professor Hilgard. 7 
days in succession. The season for rain is from November 
to May, during which period there will be sixteen to eight- 
een rainy days, in " spells " of two or three days at a time, 
and an occasional rainy night between two bright days. It 
is rare that a whole day is cloudy ; but cloudless weeks are 
common. Fogs are rare-dews are light, rarely noted ex- 
cept on low lands. 
The temperature is less absolutely equable than in the 
neighboring sea-coast towns. As Pasadena is not a station 
of the United States Signal Service, and Los Angeles is, I 
take the records of the latter place-distant from Pasadena 
seven miles-and reproduce a table from my previous paper 
in the "Southern California Practitioner" for December, 
1886. 
The first vertical column gives the elevation above sea- 
level. This is to be borne in mind for the comparison, as 
it modifies all other conditions. 
The second vertical column gives the number of days 
in the year in which rain fell-the least appreciable quan- 
tity, namely, one hundredth of an inch, constituting a 
" rainy day." 
The third column gives the mean average per cent of 
cloudiness, no day being called clear if at either of the 
three observations any clouds are observed. 
Column fourth gives the mean relative humidity, satu- 
ration being 100. 
Column fifth, the rainfall in inches. 
The first column on the right gives the mean tempera- 
ture of January and February, the two coldest months ; the 
fourth on the right, the mean temperature of the two 
warmest months, July and August. 
The last column, the mean annual temperature, which is 
not of much importance, since a place where the thermome- 
TEMPERATUBE. 8 
ter has a great range may have the same mean as a place 
where the range is but a few degrees : 
PLACE. 
| Elevation. 
Eain-days. 
CQ 
X 
9 
.s 
c 
c 
E 
| Humidity. 
Rainfall. 
TEMPERATURE. 
1 Jan. and 
| Feb. 
1 Mar. and 
I April. 
| May and 
| June. 
1 July and 
1 Aug. 
1 Sept, and 
| Oct. 
1 Nov. and 
| Dec. 
§ 
s 
New York .. 
122 
4 
73 
43 
27 
41 
62 
72 
55 
34 
48 
Aiken, S. C. 
585 
132 
3 
r 
58 
51 
45 
56 
72 
81 
68 
48 
61 
Jacksonville, 
Fla 
37 
127 
3 
68 
67 
54 
63 
79 
82 
72 
58 
68 
San Antonio, 
Los Angeles, 
Texas 
676 
113 
2 
i 
67 
34 
43 
66 
81 
81 
61 
50 
63 
Cal 
350 
51 
2 
3 
67 
16 
54 
58 
64 
65 
62 
55 
59 
St. Paul 
811 
99 
4 
L 
69 
29 
14 
37 
66 
71 
52 
18 
43 
St. Paul 
New York 
Jacksonville 
San Antonio 
Aiken 
Los Angeles 
Difference of the 
means of the two 
coldest and the two 
warmest months. 
Algiers.... 23 
Mentone... 33 
A much more instructive indication is obtained by not- 
ing the difference between the mean temperature of the 
hot and cold months, which is indicated graphically by the 
black lines and arithmetically by the figures attached. It 
thus appears that Los Angeles has fewer rainy days, less 
rainfall, a much more equable temperature, closely approxi- 
mating the ideal mean of sixty degrees. In dryness of the 
air Aiken exceeds it, but it must be remembered that Aiken 
is ten times as far from the sea as Los Angeles, and that 
Los Angeles is considerably lower in level, and is, in fact, 
not an average point for Southern California. 
I esteem the comparative cloudiness, taken in connection 
with the mild and equal temperature, as most significant. 
Weber,* quoting from the "Proceedings of the British 
Royal Society for 1877 and 1878," says : " Light is inimical 
to the development of bacteria and the miscrocopic fungi 
* Ziemssen's " Cyclopaedia of Therapeutics," vol. iv, p. 41 and passim. 9 
associated with putrefaction and decay ; the preservative 
quality of light is most powerful in the direct solar ray, but 
can be demonstrated to exist in the ordinary diffused sun- 
light ; and the actinic rays of the speculum have the great- 
est effect. ... In the higher animal organisms, when de- 
prived of light, oxidation does not take place so energetic- 
ally, tissue change and nutrition are impaired. ... In 
winter an invalid in southern lands enjoys the sun and day- 
light for several hours longer than in high northern lati- 
tudes." 
The long, bright day of Southern California, with un- 
clouded sky, mild and even warmth, and gentle winds, in- 
vites the invalid to live in the open air and protects him 
while there. 
There are considerable differences between the local cli- 
mates of Los Angeles and Pasadena, due to the differing 
distance from the sea (eighteen and twenty-six miles) and 
the differing elevation (350 and 800 to 1,000 feet). Hu- 
midity is one of the most important factors in local tem- 
peratures. It tempers the sun's heat and checks the earth's 
radiation. It lessens each extreme. It checks the rapidity 
of changes. In general terms the humidity varies immense- 
ly with the distance from the sea and the elevation. 
From the best comparisons which I have been able to 
make, in the absence of definite records, I think the mean 
relative humidity of Pasadena is about 60° as compared 
with 70° or 72° in the coast towns of San Diego, Santa 
Barbara, etc. In the same way the annual and diurnal 
range of the thermometer would be about ten degrees 
greater than in the towns named. The high point moves 
up. Pasadena is hotter in the summer, but not colder in 
winter, than Los Angeles ; the mean will therefore be 
higher. It is about 60° for the whole year at Los Angeles, 
and about 70° at Pasadena. The extremes are 32° and 
100° at Los Angeles, and 34° and 108° at Pasadena. 10 
Many of the older residents declare that the summer 
climate is fully as enjoyable as the winter. June is not 
always warmer than December. Eighty degrees Fahren- 
heit in the dry and breezy air of Pasadena does not seem 
as warm as 75° in the humid and sultry air of the East. 
CLINICAL HISTORIES. 
In earlier days Pasadena was an outlying pasture ground 
of the San Gabriel plain, and subject to the administration 
of the Franciscan Mission of San Gabriel. For nearly 
twenty years, from 1830 to 1849, the Mexican governors 
curtailed the authority, fed upon the revenues, and parceled 
out the lands of the church. 
When it became apparent that California would soon 
become part of the United States, Governors Alvarado and 
Pico made haste to distribute among their retainers and 
friends all the ungranted lands, and their grants were, for 
the most part, held valid by the Government of the United 
States. For the last twenty years these grants have been 
divided again and again, and have come into the market. 
Thus, in 1873, about 1,500 acres, held under the Garjias 
and Wilson grants, were sold to a colony, of Indiana peo- 
ple. The financial crisis of 1873 practically broke up the 
organization, but some of its members remained, and from 
1873 to 1876 some thirty-five families, containing one hun- 
dred and fifty members, settled upon the territory and have 
remained there. To these have been added, particularly 
within the last three years, strangers enough to raise the 
population to somewhat more than five thousand, among 
whom the old-timers are dispersed. 
There are no authentic records, in fact none of any sort, 
of the vital history of the original settlers ; but by conver- 
sation with some of their number and a comparison of their 
statements I have derived the following information. From 11 
the time and efforts given to verifying its points, I believe 
it closely approximates actual facts. 
It must be remembered that a portion of these original 
immigrants came as confirmed invalids, a larger portion on 
account of their inability or unwillingness to endure the 
harsher climates in which they had previously lived. Such 
a community could not be assumed to possess average vi- 
tality or expectation of life. 
They were obliged to create their homes on the new and 
arid soil of an upland plain. Only gradually did comforta- 
ble houses replace the tents and shanties and " adobes " in 
which for years they were harbored. Such conditions do 
not seem to offer average protection to infancy and age and 
feeble life. 
But the record seems to say that there were thirty- 
five families, comprising, including children brought with 
them and children born here, one hundred and forty-nine 
persons. 
Allowing ten years as the average period of residence, 
and multiplying 149 X 10, we have 1,490 years of aggregate 
life. In these families thus aggregated, including the old, 
the diseased, and the infants, there have occurred, in ten 
years, thirteen deaths ; less than one per cent! Most of 
these were from causes quite independent of local influences. 
Thus, the causes of death given are: cerebral tumor, one ; 
diabetes, one ; apoplexy, one ; diseases of the lungs, four ; 
old age, one ; heart-disease, four ; children, four ; thirteen 
in all. 
Several cases, said to be " diseased lungs," have issued 
in permanent recovery. There have been no cases of " con- 
sumption " among children born here, although hereditary 
predisposition must be presumed for many. There has been 
no death in these thirty-five families from typhus or ty- 
phoid fevers, diphtheria, measles, or whooping cough. In 
the whole community, numbering now nearly five thousand 12 
people, I have been able to learn of but four deaths from 
scarlet fever, and one from diphtheria in ten years. Twice 
in the last ten years there have been local evidences of 
diarrhoea and dysentery, mild in character and without mor- 
tality ; also a few cases of typhoid fever, all traceable to 
local causes-water contamination from open ditches and 
neglected reservoirs. These causes were promptly removed, 
with speedy suppression of the disease. 
It has been thought that miasmatic diseases are likely 
to come in as the irrigating water is spread over an annu- 
ally increasing area and the land is shaded by increasing 
areas of orchards and groves. 
There are reasons for doubting the truth of this assump- 
tion. In one of the oldest orchards lives a family whose 
eight children have been reared on purely irrigated land. 
There has never been among them one case of miasmatic 
disease, though some of them are now adults. A few 
years since an ague-stricken colony of forty-three persons 
was brought from the " bottoms " of the Tombigbee River, 
in Alabama, and placed on the oldest, lowest, and dampest 
ranches of the San Gabriel region. For two years ague 
was rife among them, but the residual effects of their for- 
mer abode have been eliminated, and now ague is either un- 
known or very rare among them. A great improvement in 
their general appearance is noted. 
It would be hard to find anywhere a better developed 
and more wholesome looking body of children than you 
may see in the public schools of Pasadena. 
Thus we may conclude that the vital record of the 
place, up to the present time, has been very exceptionally 
good. Henceforth the population will contain a large num- 
ber of persons who have been sent hither as a forlorn hope 
-a last resort-and mortality from chest diseases may be 
very large. It is with a melancholy and imbittered sense 
that the local medical men recognize that so many are 13 
thoughtlessly or cruelly sent only to die among strangers, 
and far from all the resources of home. 
Having thus considered the physical advantages of 
Pasadena, it remains to notice the social and municipal 
privileges and attractions which figure so largely in the 
choice of a residence or temporary abode. 
It is proper to say that the present writer is not a resi- 
dent, but a visitor, now for the second winter. 
The boundless faith and enterprise of the citizens in this 
direction have secured remarkable results. More than 
$100,000 has been raised within the past year for church 
construction. There are six or more churches already, and 
four more are under contract. One of them is, and two 
more will be, such as would be considered an ornament to 
any Eastern town or city. 
A system of well-equipped schools with good buildings, 
culminates in a high-school, for which an ample and elegant 
building is completed. 
There are three banks, overflowing with money, which 
during the last six months has resulted from real-estate 
transactions which go up into sums of seven figures. 
Four street-railways in operation, and as many more 
undertaken or projected, radiate from the center of the town 
to all points of the compass ; and the great transconti- 
nental systems of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the 
Atlantic and Pacific, and the Southern Pacific, enter the 
town, and are soon to build on the principal street large 
and elegant stations to accommodate the great and increas- 
ing passenger traffic with all points of the country. This 
traffic will then no longer need to pass through Los An- 
geles, which is but eight miles distant and has railroad 
facilities which compare with those of Rochester or In- 
dianapolis. 
There are miles of well-constructed concrete side-walks, 
and they are being laid in all directions. 14 
There is a well-organized and rapidly increasing public 
library. A Young Men's Christian Association building 
and a theatre will soon combine in the education of the 
young folk. 
The shops and markets are adequate to the present, and 
are expanding to meet future demands. 
Two "palatial" hotels, with accommodations equal to 
those of our best watering-places, are in operation, and in 
the present season have been obliged to refuse almost as 
many guests as they admitted. Smaller hotels are spring- 
ing up all about; some are very pretty. There is an insuffi- 
cient number of private boarding-houses with a tariff of 
from ten to twenty dollars per week. There are "fur- 
nished lodgings " of all qualities, tolerable and intolerable 
restaurants, where one may be fed or famished, at discrimi- 
nate prices. 
The social life of the place is peculiar. The community 
is composed of former residents of every State in the Union, 
and most of the nations of the globe. The Mexican type 
of Indian, the Hong-Kong type of Chinese, and the Caro- 
lina type of negro, furnish the lower ranks of labor, and 
are much more decent and civil than the similar class in 
Eastern cities. Mechanics, artisans, and gardeners are 
mostly Americans or Germans of very good class. Pro- 
prietors and agents, etc., are largely recruited from the 
Northwestern States, Iowa taking the lead. 
There are many people from the older States whose edu- 
cation, property, and taste have their fair influence in form- 
ing society. Cleveland, Chicago, and Minneapolis are well 
represented, and there is a faint and vanishing savor of 
the older Californian life. 
Altogether it is a spirited and highly cosmopolitan com- 
munity ; how conservative it is appears from the fact that 
there is, I believe, but one saloon where liquors are sold by 
the dram ; and how aesthetic-from the general cultivation 15 
and use of flowers, and the very pleasing and frequent mu- 
sical and dramatic entertainments. 
Nowhere else in California does a more wide and fertile 
plain invite man's cultivation ; nowhere else does the pulse 
of travel and traffic beat more visible and constant ; no- 
where else is a serener sky bent above a fairer landscape, 
margined and sentineled on one side by the green and 
much carved hills and snow-capped mountains, and on the 
other by the far-shining sea. 
The dweller in Pasadena fully and fervently believes 
that his home is, and is evermore to be, the delight of all 
eyes and the desire of the whole earth.