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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



none the less there are certain well-organized and efficiently operated 

 agencies Avhich have for their function tlie improvement of public 

 hygiene and sanitation, the eradication of preventable disease, and the 

 study of causation and methods of control of diseases. Most of these 

 functions are exercised by the Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv- 

 ice, which, strangely enough, constitutes a bureau iinder the Treasury 

 Department. Some of this work is done under the Department of 

 Agriculture, and other minor lines are scattered elsewhere through the 

 national machinery. It is easily seen how much more efficient would 

 be the work were all these agencies for national health protection united 



The Immigration Station, Ellis Island. 



under one administrative head, and their various activities carefully 

 coordinated. 



The Public Health and Marine Hospital Service operates all 

 national quarantine stations where inspection is made for yellow fever, 

 typhus fever, smallpox, bubonic plague, leprosy and cholera; maintains 

 hospitals throughout the country for sailors of the American merchant 

 marine ; conducts the Hygienic Laboratory at Washington for the study 

 of the causation and treatment of diseases; exercises numerous minor 

 functions of a national board of health ; and conducts the medical inspec- 

 tion of immigrants. Certain diseases are found so frequently among 

 immigrants, and others are so inherently dangerous, as to merit special 

 mention because of their important relation to public health. 



First among these might be placed trachoma, a disease of the eyelids 

 characterized by extreme resistance to treatment, very chronic course 

 and most serious results. Most of the immigrant cases occur in 

 Eussians, Austrians and Italians, although it is of common occurrence 

 in oriental and Mediterranean countries. It causes a large percentage of 



