Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/337

Rh the medical examination must be conducted on board ship are most disconcerting and difficult for the medical officer. The law regards all aliens alike, and the regulations governing the medical examination of aliens expressly make no distinction between those in the cabin and in the steerage. As a matter of fact, the chances of a defective immigrant escaping detection in the cabin are far greater than in the steerage. This depends on many factors of which space forbids more than mention. The aliens of the first cabin are frequently discharged without examination by the medical officer. In the confusion and excitement on board an arriving liner not infrequently defective aliens as well as others are passed with no medical examination.

It is not true that immigrants come only in the steerage. On many lines the second and even the first cabin brings a class of alien passengers distinctly inferior to the steerage of such lines as the Scandinavian and Scotch. In his report for 1911 of the medical examination of aliens at Boston, Dr. M. V, Safford says: