Section 1. Be it enacted, &c., That whenever there shall have been established in any county of this Commonwealth a duly incorporated society, chartered to maintain a sanatorium for the treatment therein of persons suffering from tuberculosis, it shall be lawful for the commissioners of such county, and they are hereby authorized and empowered, to appropriate out of the funds of such county, to such society, so much money as may be necessary for the maintenance of indigent persons, residents of the county, who may be inmates of such sanatorium and under treatment for tuberculosis.