Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-12-23
PATCHING UP
 THE IMMIGRANT
Curing" of Diseased Aliens
 Described by Dr. Fishberg.
TREMENDOUS INDUSTRY ABROAD

aA4 AA8 EAtAOn ScrNAcS A1O"
 Foreign Doctors Make Undesirab ble
 Persons Able to Enter Our Land.
 Says Trachoma Is Getting Inflow
 Adrena1ine Is Used.
 That diseased European immigrants
 are sdoctored up" in great numbers
 for shipment to the United States is
 ihe charge made by Dr. Maurice Fish
 berg of New York city, a special in-
 spector of the immigration service of
 the United States, who recently return
 ed from abroad, says the New York
 Tribune. Dr. Fishberg spent several
 months in the old world, visiting the
 European terminals of the big trans
 atlantic steamship lines and making
 special study of the shipping of Rus
 sian immigrants across the German
 frontier. Inasmuch as tremendous
 increase in the immigration of Rus
 sian Jews to the United States is un- der way just now, Dr. Fishbarg's 'ob-
 servations are of special importance
 because of their timeliness. Most of
 the things which the doctor saw abroad
 are incorporated in a report which he
 made to the commissioner general of immigration at Washington. Dr. Fish
 berg said recently at his home:
 ''The curing of diseased aliens for admission to the United States has be-
 come tremendous industry abroad.
 Ramifcations of the business may be found at Liverpool London, Southamp
 ton, Marseilles and at various frontier, cities of Russia and Austria Hungary. In these cities have personally visit ed boarding houses and so called hos pitais' where immigrants suffering from trachoma in it's most advanced stages were being treated that they might pass inspection and enter the United States.
 ''Trachoma is disease of the eye of which America has special horror. When transplanted to the tenement re- glons of New York city it spreads rap idly and becomes almost as virulent as in the orient. By the New York board of health it is especially dreaded, and the authorities at the various immigra- tions ports of this country are trying with might and main to keep it out.
 1In Marseilles the treatment of tra- choma has assumed remarkable d. mansions. Here most of the immi- grants from the orient, from Syria, Ar menia and neighboring countries, come on their way to the United States. Most of the immigrants report to man by the name of Anton Fares, who refers them to certain boarding houses. Later they are sent to Dr. G. Reynaut, 20 1 Boulevarde d'Athenee, for examination. l Those who are found free from con tagious disease receive tickets and are at once shipped to Havre, but as soon as one of these orientals is discovered ] the unfortunate immigrant and says: ! "'There are only two ways open to you. You can either go by way of St. Nazaire to Mexico, where have agents i to conduct you across the frontier into the United States, or you can go to doctor here and get cured. Now, the first plan is expensive and dangerous, |. but the doctor is very successful ! "Of course tEe poor fellow goes to the. doctor, who, by the way, does fiourishing business. I met more than a hundred immigrants every day visit ed the clinic. The charge is franc for each treatment, and some of these un- fortunate patients have told me that they have been under the doctors care for more than two months. When cured they are generally sent to Havre and then shipped to New York. The treatment is frequently continued until the immigrants purse in all but emp tied.
 This business is used also to fleece me healthy oriental. Fares has a prac- tee which, I believe. is peculiar to him. self, of having immigrants treated for trachoma who have no trachoma at all. These generally have money and are referred by Fares to the doctor, who tells them they have trachoma, but that 1t is curable. One franc day is charg- ed for the treatment, 3 or for board and lodging and this is kept up for month. When declared cured the vic tim is charged more than the usual price for a steamship ticket. Such indi- viduals are, as a rule. never depOrted for eye disease and accordingly become excellent advertisements for Fares.
 'sThis man Fares is well known to the French authorities and has re- peatedly been under charges for cheating immigrants. He has a news paper to boom his business. which has 8 wide circulation in Syria. He ships from forty to fifty immigrants a week and stops at nothing in dealing with them
 ''The Russian Hebrew comes to America chiefly by way of Germany, either sailing directly from Bremen or Hamburg or going to England and from a British port Little Is done at Bremen or Hamburg to patch up immigrants. but at the sta lions along the Russian and Austrian borders the practice is common. I have personally met more than fifty immigrants in hospital st Thorn. on the Russian Polish bOr- fer. Health certificates have been re- fused all of them by the steamship who told them to go home When they said. however. that they bad money enough for a cure they were cent to a hospital run by a zauehter of a steamship agent. Some ,< fhe pafieuts told me theT had stay