Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/669

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 645

treatment of trachoma. In a single week during the early autumn the vigilance of the inspectors had excluded more cases of contagious diseases than during the four years of the pre- ceding administration. From September 12 to December 31, 1902, 12,647 children in Manhattan alone were excluded for con- tagious eye diseases, 8,994 for pediculosis and 66 1 for contagious skin diseases. Indeed, by the end of the year the number of eye cases had increased to such an extent that they could not be properly treated by the dispensaries. This large increase in the number of exclusions did not mean, of course, that the diseases themselves had necessarily increased, but for the most part was clearly due to the greater vigilance of the inspectors under the new system.

To meet this growing need, the Board of Health was com- pelled to do something, and do it quickly. Accordingly, in December, 1902, it requested the Board of Trustees of Bellevue and allied hospitals to fit up two wards, an operating room, and a dispensary, in the old Gouverneur Hospital, for the treatment of trachoma. The marvelous speed with which this request was complied with is a tribute to the energy and efficiency of the hospital authorities. On December 16, or within five days after the order from the Board of Health had been received, the new hospital was opened to the public, fully equipped and furnished with accommodations for thirty bed patients and a staff of eight doctors and six nurses.

Visit this eye hospital on a weekday afternoon, or better, on a Saturday morning when the children are out of school for the day, and you will see a sight not soon to be forgotten. A vast throng of boys and girls, from the little tot with its mother, up to children of twelve or fifteen years of age, may be seen filling the reception room of the dispensary waiting to have their eyes treated. Their numbers prove that the work of the new institution is no myth. And yet, in spite of the hundreds of children in the room, there is perfect order and quiet. A kindly- faced police officer stands by the door and arranges the young people in three long lines. At the head of each line sits a doctor, assisted by a trained nurse, and as each child comes