"On September 20, 1920, a physician pulled 13-year-old Armenian refugee Yervant Cholakian out of the medical inspection line at Ellis Island and marked his tattered coat in chalk with the letters "CT." Cholakian's red eyes and swollen eyelids were telltale signs of trachoma, an infection that can cause blindness. Separated from his mother, Cholakian was taken down a long passageway connecting the main immigration building to the Ellis Island hospital."
"The Ellis Island immigration station had opened in New York Harbor in 1892 to process new immigrants-a job that included medical examinations of passengers traveling in low-cost steerage class. Today, up to 40 percent of Americans have at least one ancestor who passed through Ellis Island. Yet many of the roughly 3.7 million annual visitors to the Statue of Liberty National Monument, which includes Ellis Island, don't know that the immigration station once had a 750-bed hospital."
Ellis Island operated as an immigration station from 1892 and included a 750-bed hospital that admitted about 276,000 patients between 1892 and 1951. The hospital treated illnesses such as trachoma and processed refugees and steerage passengers who underwent medical inspections. A 13-year-old Armenian refugee with trachoma was separated for hospital care, illustrating the human impact of medical screenings. Approximately 3.7 million annual visitors often overlook the 29 unrestored buildings on the island's south side. Preservation efforts by Save Ellis Island aim to save the abandoned complex to preserve intimate stories of fear, resilience, compassion and hope.
Read at Smithsonian Magazine
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