When you remove the oxygen the bacteria has difficulties to cope, the lung had a rest, and the patient was able to fight the TB. Dimitris Dalianis needed a pneumothorax machine pneumothorax machine but such was not to find on the entire island of Ikaria, Dimitris Dalianis managed to smuggle out a letter to his wife Mando Dalianis who were in Athens (and had not yet been imprisoned) to arrange that Dimitris Dalianis pneumothorax machine would be sent to the island. Unfortunately, Mando Dalianis did not manage to get the unit sent to Ikaria. Dimitris Dalianis used then instead of a large syringe, partly to puncture the pleura of patients and also suck out pus from the pleura. As tube, he used the sounds hose from his stethoscope. The situation in the sanatorium was very primitive. There was no furniture and the patients lay directly on the floor. But thanks to the treatment and slightly better food several patients became better. Fighting TB was also a question of psychology. But suddenly something very terrible happened, the syringe broke. Dimitris Dalianis became despondent, he had no other syringe except two very small syringes but they could not be used. The prisoners saw the despair on his face several patients became worse when they could not be emptied of each. Someone came in to use a reed (kalami, καλαμι, καλαμι, the Greek firm, heavy variety, almost like bamboo) cut into and assembled to create the vacuum and suck out pus. It worked with some difficulty and treatment of the patients were able to continue successfully. Patients fever disappeared, they stopped coughing blood and was feeling better. During dr. Dimitris Dalianis time as head of the sanitarium none of the patients died. Of the total of 120 patients treated at the sanatorium, only five patients died during treatment. These five deceased patients are buried next to the monastery, one of the deceased is unknown, where it says XΕΝΟΣ, ΞΕΝΟΣ unknown or stranger in Greek. Dimitris Dalianis and his staff did not sleep in the sanitarium because of the risk of infection, but in a detached storage room with two small rooms some distance away. Patients lay together in various convent cells in the monastery, depending at what stage of TBC they had.