The Boston Consumptives Hospital was the largest tuberculosis treatment facility ever built in Massachusetts. The hospital was established specifically to serve residents of Boston, where the death rate from consumption was the third highest in the nation in the early 20th century. In 1909 the Consumptives Hospital Department of Boston acquired a rural farm in the Mattapan neighborhood as the location for the new hospital campus. Today the 52-acre site holds an intact collection of 18 buildings that were historically associated with the hospital facility, including administrative buildings, patient wards, and staff residences. The complex was listed in the National Register in 2001 and since then eight of the buildings have been rehabilitated for use as rental housing using federal historic tax credits.