Ellis Island and the historic medical examination of Immigrants
Ellis Island is located in Upper New York Bay of Jersey City, New Jersey, but considered a part of New York City. This island historically was one of the United States busiest immigrant inspection station for more than 12 million prospect immigrants between 1892 and 1954. It is said that 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry back to being processed through this inspection port. Before Ellis Island became an immigrant processing center it was known as Gull Island or Kioshk by Native Americans. Around the 1630’s Gull Island was later renamed Oyster Island, but with the changing British colonial period this island went through numerous name changes until Samuel Ellis, a Manhattan merchant, and later his family sold the island to New York State in 1808. It was then finally known as Ellis Island and was sold for the small sum of $10,000.
In the beginning immigration in the United States was under the jurisdiction of multiple states, New York State was one of the largest ports of entry reported to have 80% of the total immigrants pass through it border. In 1890, due to the growing number of immigrants and the concern of infectious disease, the states gave control of immigration to the federal government. With the help of congress in 1892 they were able to build the first immigrant processing station on Ellis Island , which opened January 1st 1892.
Before entering the United States immigrant passengers underwent medical and mental inspections by officers of the United States Public Health Service. The medical examination consisted of various techniques and procedures that medical professionals used to quickly examine hundreds to thousands of immigrants as the flowed through. These trained medical professionals were a team of Public Health service nurses and doctors used to weed out sick individuals. This inspection began on board the ship in an area of ‘quarantine’ at the entrance of the Lower Bay with a simple inspection of first and second class passengers for contagious diseases like cholera, the plaque, typhoid, etc. It was thought that “if a person could afford to purchase a first or second class ticket , they were less likely to become a public charge in America due to medical or legal reasons” (CITE LIBERTYELLISFOUNDATION.ORG) If one was suspected of being sick they were transferred further onto the island along with the third class passengers for additional inspection.
Each of these prospect immigrant carried their bags into the main building following a long flight of stairs, and according to “ Before Ebola, Ellis Island’s Terrifying Medical Inspections” ,”Those who had to stop in the middle of this path, clutching their chests in pain or resting because they were short of breath, were pulled aside to be inspected for evidence of chronic heart disease, such as atherosclerosis or damage from a long-ago bout of rheumatic fever, or lung problem” (CITE) Each immigrant was slowly assessed at a glance by the Public Health Service officers who observed and surveyed for serious and minor disease and conditions, with an additional look at their eyelids to check for trachoma. Trachoma was an eye disease that caused blindness and even lead to death when left untreated. Almost 50% of immigrants who were examined further before registration were suspected of having this eye disease and those who were confirmed of Trachoma were marked with the letters ‘Ct’ and were sent back to their home countries. If immigrants were diagnosed with another disease or even too weak they were not allowed to enter the United States, resulting in a total of only 2% to 3% who were rejected. The mental health part of the examination lead to many misdiagnosed and deported immigrants. Prospective immigrants who were ‘diagnosed’ as mental cases were misdiagnosed due to doctors cultural incompetence of failing to understand a particular immigrant. One assistant surgeon by the name of Howard Knox encouraged the use of mentally assessing immigrants by inspecting and studying the “..facial expressions, inspections officers could diagnose a myriad of diseases and afflictions including ’ drugs addictions, alcoholism hereditary syphilis, psychopathic disposition, sane and insane paranoiac systems, epilepsy, hysteria, neurasthenia, melancholia, manic depressive insanity, idiocy, imbecility.’” (CITE HISTORY.BARNARD.EDU)
The simple glance method that physicians and nurses used to diagnose immigrants as ‘health’ or ‘not healthy’ displayed the idea that disease was something you could see with the eye. The disease control methods used by Public Health service agents were effective and innovative at that time, but this practice focused solely on chronic diseases and disability or in other words those who they thought would make ‘good citizens’. In vetting for these ‘good citizens’ a lot of the practices still conformed to the racist , xenophobic, sexist, and classist ideologies that the United States held at that time. The system that Ellis Island used allowed unrestricted immigration from Northwestern Europe, but had tougher restrictions for those who came from Southern and Eastern Europe, particularly targeting prospective Italian and German immigrants. Other immigrants who were non-Europeans faced even larger obstacles at the entry point for medical examinations and it was argued by health officials that it these type of people were harder to visually examine for diseases.
The introduction of the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted the number of immigrants that may be allowed in the United States by only allowing about 2 percent of immigrants from each nationality to receive visas ( excluding immigrants from Asia). This act also allowed ,pushed? the medical and mental inspection of immigrants for qualification at U.S consulates overseas. This act and America’s involvement in World War I changed the patterns of immigration, marking the end of mass immigration to The UNited States and the change of the main function of Ellis Island. The island went from an immigration processing station to one one of assembly, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants. It was then that the deterioration of Ellis Island began to then closed November 1952. The concern to the possible threats of disease that immigrants may bring