Up a Tree

 My maternal grandfather, William, died in the 1920s at the age of 47 from "chronic pulmonary tuberculosis. Presumably he picked it up during his service as a Marine, possibly while serving in Culebra in the U.S. Virgin Isles.  My grandfather,  William Consumption, as TB was once known, has attacked humans and, as it turns out, other mammals for thousands of years. Robert Koch discovered the bacterium, M. tuberculosis in 1895, and the development and use of X-rays shortly after made it possible to diagnose the disease with certainty.  The disease was especially prevalent among the poor, as you might guess, given the lack of sanitation available to them, poor nutrition and other factors that usually combine to make diseases more of a problem for those without means. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it may have been the leading cause of death in the U.S., with some 25 percent of deaths being attributed to consumption. By the beginning of the 20th century, improvements in health care,

 In my last post, I mentioned the prodigious amount of correspondence my maternal grandmother, Lulu, produced in her quest to obtain a widow's pension.  Ultimately the person who would confirm or deny the pension was the commissioner of pensions for the military -- Winfield Scott. This Winfield Scott could not have been the famous Civil War general,  but I wondered if he might be related.  I looked him up after first seeing his name, and found a piece -- I think on Wikipedia -- that said Scott was not related. In fact, he wasn't even born Winfield Scott. He apparently was an admirer of the general and had changed his name in the general's honor. My problem now is that I can't find that article to give you the man's real name or to confirm any of the above details.   But I found a picture of his 1925 swearing in, below, and found out that his department was merged into the Veterans Administration,  created in 1930. I'll update if I'm ever able to confirm the