Otago had two, including the Pleasant Valley Sanatorium, just south of Palmerston, which opened 100 years ago last month.
Mrs Isobel Spence, of Tainui, could not let the centenary pass without sharing the contents of 11 letters written by her aunt Lizzie Gamble - a 16-year-old patient at Pleasant Valley in the autumn and winter of 1911.
"They really, really touched me. I just thought she was a sweet, lovely girl.
"She didn't really make a big fuss about her condition. She was so sure she was going to get better."
Lizzie died from tuberculosis in the spring of 1911.
Pleasant Valley, April 4:"Dear Mag, The time seems to pass very quickly here. To think, that we have been here over four weeks. We have not been up. It seems as if we are going to stay in bed for ever. To think, it is six months since I first went to bed and to find myself still here at the end of that time."
The sanatorium had opened the previous year, the ODT reporting it was built "on proper lines" and was fully equipped with "all appliances which would render the life of the patients more comfortable and give them every opportunity to regain their health and strength".
A party from Dunedin attended the opening by train, listened to speeches, enjoyed an orchestral recital with lunch and took a stroll in the sunshine.
"It would be too much to hope," one speaker remarked, "that all days at this sanatorium would be so pleasant as this one ... with its warmth of sentiment and bright sunshine."
Bad weather was a continuing theme in Lizzie's letters.
April 23: "We have had terrible weather the past few days. The rain beating in the doors. They have never had the doors closed since they came here.
"My word, I don't think I will be afraid of catching cold after I leave here, lying out on the veranda these bitter days, with the wind and the rain driving everywhere."
The 1909 Household Companion: The Family Doctor noted that for the treatment of Tb "so far as possible" air should never be "rebreathed".
"Air which has once been breathed is deprived of some of its oxygen and what is still more objectionable is loaded with some of the poisons given off by the body.
"A tuberculous subject should sit in the open air all day while under treatment and should sleep in a room with the windows open on two sides unless he can do what is better still, sleep out of doors."
May 16: "My word I pity you all having to turn out these mornings. We only get out to get our beds made on mild mornings.
"How would you like to be sleeping with little more than a roof over your head. I don't know what you will do with me when I come home as I have not done my hair for two days."
June 7: "I have a real dose of the cold. My eyes are real sore and my nose is bunged up. Nearly all the patients have colds and they never give one a single thing for it. If we were at home we would be trying all sorts of things."
June 13: "I have not had any washing done the last two weeks and I don't know when this week's washing will be done as last is still on the line.
"We have been having very bad weather up here lately. Everything about is very sloppy. The nurses have oil skin coats and gumboots and my word they just come in time."
In addition to fresh air the patients, 13 men and 13 women, were offered a new treatment that involved having "something" inserted into the lung with a hypodermic needle.
April 4: "It is to be done about every fifth morning and what they put in is supposed to be the same that is in our lungs only in dead form. The dead matter is supposed to cause a reaction and they say it will cure you in a year. You need not take it unless you like but they want all the patients to take it if they are ill.
April 23: "Ethel and I had the new treatment yesterday. You only feel it for a few minutes after she pulls the needle out. This morning I could not find the mark where it had gone in."
References to the weather and needles aside, Lizzie's letters were full of cheerful gossip ...
"Mona coming with that turban on. Isn't it a dreadful sight. Kate's blouse and skirt look very nice. I like the stuff of her skirt."
... cheerful requests ...
"Could you send me a bottle of black currant jam. The trouble is, the raspberry jelly was just lovely only it had the fault of not enough of it".
... and just one hint, in her last letter, of her loneliness at being unwell far from home.
"When is mother coming to Hampden. She does not say, just says she is preparing.
"Surely could not among you all find time to write me two letters at least a week. It seems ages before a letter comes. You don't know what it is to be here and get only one letter a week and see the letters going around every day. It might not seem much to you but I am all alone here while you are many."
Isobel Spence: "I thought she was wonderful that her spirit was so good and the fact that her wants were so meagre. To get a pencil or a pencil sharpener or a pad or a jar of raspberry jam or a feather pillow or any little thing, she was so pleased. I just thought it was humbling, really."
• The Pleasant Valley Sanatorium closed in 1954. It was then used as a church camp and, until 2005, as a motor camp. The property is now in private ownership.
