232 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



IMMIGRATION AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH. 



By Dr. ALLAN MCLAUGHLIN, 



U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH AND MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE. 



nnHE popular belief that immigTation constitutes a menace to the 

 -*- public health is not without foundation. Newspapers and mag- 

 azines contain graphic accounts of the squalor and insanitary condi- 

 tions of the tenement districts of our great cities. Recent newspaper 

 reports and comments upon the remarkable spread of trachoma in the 

 public schools of New York and other great cities add to the popular 

 feeling of distrust, and the opinion is gaining ground everywhere that 

 more stringent means must be devised for keeping out the undesirable 

 class of immigrants which augments the frightfully overcrowded popu- 

 lation of the tenement district of New York and other large cities. 



In the consideration of danger to the public health from immigra- 

 tion, three factors must be taken into account: (1) The physique of 

 the immigrant; (2) his destination, and (3) the presence or absence 

 of communicable disease. 



The first mentioned, the physique of the immigrant, is by far the 

 most important factor. Good physique was much more general among 

 immigrants a quarter of a century ago than among the immigrants 

 of to-day. The bulk of the immigrants previous to 1880 came from 

 the sturdy races of northern and western Europe, and, not only was 

 good physique the rule, but loathsome, communicable or contagious 

 disease was extremely rare. The immigration from Ireland, Germany 

 and the Scandinavian countries is insignificant to-day compared with 

 the thousands of Slavs, Italians, Hebrews and other immigrants from 

 southern or eastern Europe, which now crowd American-bound vessels 

 and pour through the ports of this country in an ever-increasing stream. 



With the change in the racial character of immigration, most 

 marked in the past decade, a pronounced deterioration in the general 

 physique of the immigrants, and a much higher per cent, of loath- 

 some and dangerous disease is noticeable. Thousands of immi- 

 grants of poor physique are recorded as such by the medical inspectors 

 at Ellis Island, and a card to this effect sent to the registry clerk or 

 immigrant inspector with the immigrant, but this mere note of phys- 

 ical defect carries little significance under the present law, and the 

 vast majority of them are admitted by the immigration authorities, 

 because it does not appear that the physical defect noted will make the 



