Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/332

328 Only aliens of the steerage class are taken to Ellis Island. Aliens in the first and second cabin of arriving vessels are examined on board by medical officers of the Public Health Service who board the vessel as it leaves the New York Quarantine at the entrance to the bay. The present force of medical officers at the Ellis Island station is hard pushed to keep abreast of their continually increasing duties and responsibilities. No definite standard has yet been found for the mental and physical examination of immigrants. It is a new and very technical field in public health work. Experience and practise alone will show what is best. No absolute and ironbound rules can be laid down at present as to methods of administration and examination. These features make especially difficult the task of the medical examiners at Ellis Island. Being by far the largest port of entry, Ellis Island must of necessity have most to do with the determination of the best methods of examination, and of standards of examination which can be used elsewhere after being put to the test of actual trial here and modified in