V. DiPietro - NPS

Buttonhook collection. U.S. Public Health Service used items like these to conduct immigrant eye exam at Ellis Island.

The "Buttonhook". Device used by women during the 19th and 20th centuries to complete the lacing and buttoning of shoes/boots, blouses and gloves. 

Doctors of the U.S. Public Health Service at Ellis Island often used these devices to check immigrants for trachoma, a highly contagious and difficult to cure eye disease. Eyelids were inverted or pulled outward to see if immigrants displayed symptoms of this dreaded disease.  Today, trachoma is still the most common form of preventable blindness world-wide. Nearly 300 million people are estimated to have the contagious disease and many never get properly treated.