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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Ceoatian. 



ination of all applicants for entry. To put this mental examination of 

 this ratio at least 3,000 of New York's 10,000 feeble-minded children 

 are the progeny of the 9,000,000 immigrants of the last ten years. 



Dr. T. W. Salmon writes that Xew York State is the destination of 

 26 per cent, of all immigrants coming to the United States, but that 

 more than 80 per cent, of the immigrants found on arrival to be men- 

 tally defective or insane are headed for that state. He found more 

 than 8,000 aliens in the Xew York State hospitals for the insane. The 

 Xew York State Lunacy Commission reported to the legislature on 

 February 14, 1912, that there were 33,311 committed insane cases in 

 the state institutions. According to Dr. Salmon, more than 25 per 

 cent, of these were aliens, who to a large extent had passed through 

 Ellis Island. The capacity of the institutions was exceeded by 3.043. 



Enough has been said to show the intimate relation obtaining 

 between immigration and the prevalence and increase of insanity and 

 mental defectiveness in the United States. It is recognized that these 

 conditions are increasing io an alarming extent and the student of 

 public health and preventive medicine must concern himself seriously 

 with the control and eradication of the sources of this increase. So far 

 as the immigration of the insane and mentally defective is concerned, 



