IMMIGRATION AXD THE PUBLIC HEALTH 



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Certain features of the public health are most prominent from the social 

 standpoint. The development of industrial life has brought many prob- 

 lems of most pertinent concern. Among them are industrial diseases, 

 such as arsenic, lead and phosphorus poisoning, child labor, hours of 

 labor, the emplo} : ment of women in certain industries, sanitation of work- 

 ing quarters, and the responsibility of employers for the life and activities 

 of employees outside of the workroom. The rapid growth of facilities 

 for travel and the enormous number of travelers on railroads and steam- 

 ships presents some unexpected problems in the sanitation of common 

 carriers. Several instances are recorded of smallpox spreading in Pull- 

 man coaches. Mosquitoes, fleas, bedbugs and flies may easily carry an 

 infection over long distances by aid of the railroad. A typhoid carrier 

 can infect every water supply traversed by his train between Los Angeles 

 and Xew York. The prevention of accidents in mines, and other indus- 

 tries, improved methods of controlling epidemics, and preventable dis- 

 eases, and of saving the victims of common accidents like drowning, pre- 

 vention of overcrowding in cities, proper housing of the poor; these are 

 but a few of the numberless problems in the new science of public 

 hygiene, from the standpoint of social public health. 



The physical public health is concerned with communicable disease 

 and its direct results, as in epidemics, while mental public health con- 

 siders the prevalence, prevention and care of mental disorders, and the 

 new science of mental hygiene. 



One of the most important of the factors having to do with the 

 public health is immigration. Xot in the world's history has so vast an 

 ethnic movement been recorded as that from Europe to America. The 

 tribal migrations of ancient Europe are puny indeed compared to the 

 great tide of a million and a quarter souls coming every year to the 



Boarding Cutter " Immigrant," Ellis Island. 



