Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/16

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of 720 cases transferred to the Quarantine Hospital at the Harbor entrance before the completion of the present contagious hospital on Ellis Island.

The third division of the medical inspection is "the line" or primary inspection. This is the part that the visitor to the island sees, and has been often described. Suffice it to say that as the immigrants leave the barges they pass in single file before the medical officers who pick out all who present evidence of any mental or physical defect. They are turned aside into the medical examining rooms for more careful observation. Each defect or disease receives a medical certificate signed by three physicians, which places the bearer in one of the three classes already mentioned. Those who require immediate medical or surgical care for any reason are transferred to the hospital, as are also certain cases in which longer observation and more detailed examination are necessary for diagnosis. Examples of this are tuberculosis, parasitic scalp diseases, mental disorders and trachoma.

Having been certified or passed clear in the medical division, the immigrant goes together with those from the barge who have not been turned aside, to the upper or registry floor, for the inspection of the immigration authorities. These inspectors ask the same questions that the immigrant was required to answer when the ship's manifest was filled out before embarkation. This covers such information as name, age, destination, race, nativity, last residence, occupation, condition of health, nearest relative or friend in the old country, who paid his