GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND 



17 



having existed prior to landing. If the present entrance inspection was 

 reinforced by a determined administration of these deportation laws, 

 and if all cases whose exclusion the law makes mandatory, and which 

 are now certified by the medical officers, were actually excluded, there 

 would be little cause for complaint. But such a condition does not ob- 

 tain. The medical officers have nothing whatever to do in passing judg- 

 ment on whether an immigrant shall be admitted or not. Their prov- 

 ince alone is to certify to his physical and mental status. The question 

 of admission, as well as of deportation, rests with the officials of the 

 Department of Commerce and Labor. 



Much easier is the control of organic physical diseases, as, for ex- 

 ample, hookworm infection. A survey of the prevalence of hookworm 

 disease throughout the world, made by the Eockefeller Sanitary Com- 

 mission, shows that this infection belts the world in a zone 66° wide 

 with the equator near its middle, and that practically every country in 

 this zone is heavily infected. It is evident how grave a danger lurks in 

 immigration from any country where the hookworm is prevalent. 

 Among the worst afflicted countries is India, where it is estimated that 

 from 60 to 80 per cent, of the population of 300,000,000 harbor this 

 parasite. This leads peculiar interest to the movement of Hindu coo- 

 lies into the United States in the last few years. A shipload of these 

 coolies landing recently in San Francisco were found by the health au- 

 thorities of that port to have 90 per cent, infected with hookworm. 



Berbers from Algeria, coming to fill an Engagement at a New York Theater. 

 VOL. LXXXII. — 2. 



