Department of Commerce and Labor, while the Public Health Service is under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury.
There are 82 immigration stations embracing the entire coastline and frontiers of the United States as well as the entry of aliens into the Philippines, Porto Rico and Hawaii. During the fiscal year of 1911, the total number of immigrants examined was 1,093,809. Of these 27,412 were certified for some mental or physical defect. By far the most important point of entry is Ellis Island, where 749,642 aliens were examined. Nearly 17,000 medical certificates were issued here, and more than 5,000 of these were deported.
The Ellis Island station of the Public Health Service has 25 medical officers attached, including 6 specially trained in the diagnosis and observation of mental disorders. Their work is divided into three sections, the boarding division, the hospital and the line. The boarding division has its offices at Battery Park, N. Y. By means of a fast and powerful cutter, The Immigrant, these men meet all incoming liners as they leave the New York Quarantine Station and start up the bay. Their inspection is limited to aliens in the first and second cabins. Such as require a more careful and detailed examination are sent to Ellis Island. The others are discharged at the dock, after having passed the additional inspection of the Department of Commerce and Labor. At the dock, all third and fourth class aliens are transferred to barges, carrying about 700 each, and taken to Ellis Island.
Ellis Island lies close to the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island, about a mile from Battery Park. It is the most commanding location in New York Harbor. It consists of one small natural island and two additional artificial ones, connected with the first by a covered passageway across the intervening strip of water. On the first island is the main immigration station. The other two are occupied by the hospital division of the medical service. On one of these is the general hospital and on the further one the contagious hospital, consisting of separate pavilions, connected with open covered passageways. Each hospital can accommodate close to 200 patients at once, and is usually fairly full. The service is limited strictly to aliens, and the expense of each immigrant receiving hospital care is charged to the steamship company which brought him. This hospital is excellently conducted and every method of most approved diagnostic, surgical and medical technique is practised. A rare variety of diseases is seen. Patients literally from the farthest corners of the earth come together here. Rare tropical diseases, unusual internal disorders, strange skin lesions, as well as the more frequent cases of a busy general city hospital present themselves. The variety of contagious diseases is unusual and extreme diagnostic skill is required of the physicians in charge. In the fiscal year 1911, over 6,000 cases were treated in the hospital, exclusive
