Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/168

140 transactions by the Secretary of the Board. The Surgeon-in-Chief, however, pays regular visits to the island, performs all necessary operations, which amount to a considerable number annually, and gives all directions and instructions to his assistant.

The Hospital itself is visited regularly every morning by the resident medical staff; prescriptions are sent to the apothecary, and all directions regarding the diet or care of patients given to the attending nurses. Whenever required, two or more daily visits are of course made to patients by the attending physician or surgeon. The number of buildings, their isolation and peculiar structure, allows a perfect classification of all kinds of diseases. Thus, there are buildings appropriated to contagious diseases, while others contain exclusively non-contagious maladies; a means by which the spreading of an epidemic is not only prevented, but the chance of an outbreak lessened, because every case, as soon as detected, is immediately sent to its proper place, and all possible sanitary precautions, such as fumigation, disinfection, administered.

For the same purpose, the Refuge Department is daily inspected and examined by the Assistant Physician for the detection of any case of sickness, and its immediate transfer upon discovery to the proper medical ward.

All kinds of diseases are treated on the island, with the exception only of small-pox cases, which, as stated above, are sent to the Hospital on Blackwell's Island, erected for the purpose by the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction.

The Lunatic Asylum on Ward's Island has been in successful operation since 1861, but, as the present building does not sufficiently answer the purpose, it is intended to replace it by a new and appropriate structure, having room for from 250 to 300 inmates.

To show the importance and magnitude of the institution, it is only necessary to state, that, during the twenty-three years of its existence, 207,862 inmates, or about 9,000 annually, have been treated and cared for at an average cost of $1 85 each per week. The labor of the institutions on the island is performed by 88 officers, clerks, nurses, and employees, who together receive a yearly salary of $32,581.

The island is amply supplied with Croton water, which is carried from the city by a pipe across the river to a large reservoir.