TEE MEDICAL SIDE OF IMMIGRATION 389 



cabin and steerage aliens, and the medical officer has no duty beyond 

 the purely medical inspection. 



Commissioner of Immigration Williams for the Port of New York 

 in his recent report^ for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, makes 

 some pertinent observations and recommendations regarding the medical 

 phases of the immigration question at Ellis Island. He finds that the 

 present medical quarters are not large enough for the proper execution 

 of the laws relating to physical and mental defectives. Expansion to an 

 appropriate size is prevented by the failure of Congress to appropriate 

 the funds requested. He notes the large number of feeble-minded 

 children in the schools of New York City who have passed Ellis Island, 

 and gives as one reason, lack of time and facilities for thorough examina- 

 tion as to mental condition. The result is that the law in this particular 

 is practically a dead letter. According to the law, the feeble-minded as 

 well as idiots and imbeciles are absolutely excluded. It is of vast import 

 that the feeble-minded be detected, not alone because they are predis- 

 posed to become public charges, but because they and their offspring con- 

 tribute so largely to the criminal element. All grades of moral, physical 

 and social degeneracy appear in their descendants, and it is appjirent 

 how grave is the social and economic problem involved. The steamship 

 companies do not exercise proper precautions in receiving immigrants 

 for passage, and this makes all the more necessary a rigid inspection at 

 the port of entry into this country. 



The report of the Chief Medical Officer on Ellis Island, Dr. G. W. 

 Stoner,^ shows that during the year ending June 30, 1911, nearly 17,000 

 aliens were certified for physical or mental defect and over 5,000 of 

 these were deported (not necessarily for medical reasons alone) . Among 

 those certified were 209 mental defectives, of whom 45 per cent, were 

 feeble-minded, and 33 per cent, insane. Under loathsome and dangerous 

 contagious diseases there were 1,361 cases, of which 85 per cent, were 

 trachoma. Over 11,000 aliens had a defect or diseases afEecting ability 

 to earn a living and half of these were due to age and the changes inci- 

 dent to senescence. More than 4,000 certificates were rendered for con- 

 ditions not affecting ability to earn a living. 



Over 6,000 aliens were treated in the immigrant hospital, beside 

 720 cases of contagious disease, which were transferred to the State 

 Quarantine Hospital at the harbor entrance before the completion of 

 the present contagious-disease hospital on Ellis Island. Among these 

 700 there were a hundred deaths, chiefly from measles, scarlet fever and 

 meningitis. The medical officers also examined 168 cases which had 

 I)ecome public charges in surrounding towns of New York, New Jersey 



* Williams, Wm., Commissioner of Immigration for Port of New York, 

 Annual Report for year ending June 30, 1911. 



2 Stoner, G. W., M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Ellis Island, Annual Eeport for 

 jear ending June 30, 1911. 



