Edward Livingston Trudeau (1848-1915), an American physician, established the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium at Saranac Lake, NY, in 1884. The sanatorium housed patients with tuberculosis and served as a research facility.
Born in New York City, Trudeau learned about tuberculosis when he was young by being in a family with physicians and by providing care for his brother, who died of tuberculosis. Trudeau attended medical school from 1868 to 1871 at Columbia University (New York City).
Two years after completing his medical training, Trudeau himself was diagnosed as having tuberculosis. At the suggestion of his friends, he moved to the Adirondack Mountains, and his health improved. In 1876, he opened a medical practice in Saranac Lake, where he practiced general medicine for 6 years.
After reading about the rest cure for tuberculosis, Trudeau founded the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium. The rest cure, which involved prolonged bed rest, was distinct from other tuberculosis therapies of the time, such as exposure to arid desert air or to clear mountain air that induced mild hypoxia. Trudeau used both the rest cure and a salutary environment.
Trudeau's small laboratory burned, and in 1894 he established the Saranac Laboratory for the Study of Tuberculosis. The first US tuberculosis laboratory, it later became the Trudeau Institute, a laboratory for the study of infectious diseases.
One of Trudeau's sons, Edward Livingston Trudeau, Jr, died of tuberculosis. The other son, Francis B. Trudeau, served as director of the sanatorium until it closed in 1954. Francis B. Trudeau was a grandfather of Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist.
In 2008, the United States issued a stamp (Scott No. 3432A) to honor Edward Livingston Trudeau.