I was digging around and found this.
Could this boy have been hospitilized in the Glenn Glenn Dale Tuberculosis Hospital and Sanatorium on the Glenn Dale road in Glenn Dale? Only a 23 minutes drive from the place he was found and an approx. 4 hours walk).
Google Maps
Maybe he had already a lung decease, TB or was just treated there for a persistent pneumonia or another lung related decease. In the beginning (3o's) this hospital was specifically designed for the treatment of TB and had a sanatorium campus. They treated adults and children in separate buildings, providing free medical care to concur the decease. (at least in the beginning)
The mask of acute bacterial pneumonia may disguise the face of tuberculosis
The mask of acute bacterial pneumonia may disguise the face of tuberculosis
In the 1940s, doctors discovered that antibiotics proved much more successful in treating tuberculosis. As antibiotics became more widely available in the 1950s, the number of tuberculosis patients at Glenn Dale Hospital dwindled until, in 1960, it was repurposed as a nursing home and hospital for indigent patients. The facility was finally closed in 1982.
After 1959 they treated patients with other chronic deceases, in addition to TB.
Although hospilized, certain patience could walk around freely on the campus-like environment.
The preferred treatment for TB at the time consisted mainly of prolonged exposure to sunlight and fresh air. Thus, Glenn Dale Hospital was built as a sprawling 216-acre campus of 23 buildings separated by open, expansive lawns. Rooftop gardens were installed and tended by patients to further encourage them to spend as much time outside as possible. Underground tunnels (now flooded and decrepit) provided passage between building in inclement weather, but otherwise all transit and activities took place outdoors whenever the elements permitted.
How very, very boring for a young boy, man.
Glenn Dale Abandoned Tuberculosis Hospital
https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/NR_PDFs/NR-1517.pdf
I'm not sure this will bring us any further but a new theory seems to be welcome.
Pondering on a few things, though....
The question is if he was hospitalized there, did they search for him....what did they tell his parents, that he had run away, died? A lot of things were covered up, those day, for the sake of reputation. If he was a thrown away child, would anybody really care if they told them (the social system) he died?