vitamin D deficiency. In addition to children, the Sanitarium allowed “working women in need of a holiday (to) be received on the payment of a sufficient sum to defray the cost of their board.” A journalist from the Boston Transcript spent a day in September, 1890 on the Island and wrote: “Children’s island sanitarium...was carried on by the Sisters (of St. Margaret) for 15 years; at the end of that time the old house had gone to pieces and a new building was erected, but in this there were only accommodations for the children and those in charge of them. This changed the whole character of the work and in 1900 the Mother decided to give it up. Subsequently, a new Board of Managers to oversee the operation of the sanitarium was formed with Dr. Charles E. Inches as president (replaced by Phillip L. Saltonstall in 1905.), and Mrs. Lucy W. Davis as superintendent. It seems that most of the tasks previously carried out by the Sisters were now carried out by volunteers who were "young women who give their time and services out of love for the little people and interest in the cause. They remain on the average, three weeks, and are on either morning or afternoon duty for a week at a time-four in the morning, three in the afternoon." Other changes included allowing children as young as 18 months and boys up to age 14, though most children were between four and twelve. One volunteer, Maude S. Curtiss, wrote an article for The American Journal of Nursing describing life on the island: Another volunteer, Eleanor Fairchild Cadwallader worked in the 1930s and recalls: Another account by a volunteer in 1940: A large financial supporter of the Children's Island Sanitarium, the Boston Community Fund, withdrew support necessitating the closure of the Sanitarium. In 1946, the trustees voted “not to use Children’s Island for the purposes for which this corporation is organized after November 1, 1946; and to surrender possession thereof on that date to the heirs and assigns of Frederick H. Rindge.”. References Hospital buildings completed in 1886 Hospitals in Essex County, Massachusetts Defunct hospitals in Massachusetts