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Millions of people passed through Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital between 1901 and 1924. A team of doctors performed tests to verify whether those entering the United States had any kind of contagious disease. At the beginning of 1924, the complex served as a psychiatric hospital for returning American soldiers. It was closed in 1930 and left to ruin until the 1990s. After renovation, the facility opened its doors as a historical site to the public in 2014.

Click on the gallery to find out more about the history of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital!

▲For many years, Ellis Island was the first stop for immigrants who arrived in the United States.

▲Millions of immigrants passed through the hospital to be able to live in the United States.

▲Thousands of people are recorded in the archive of hospital patients.

▲A bathroom in the women's wing.

▲The rooms with the best view of the statue were designated to immigrants who were to be deported or who were near death.

▲Every day, meals were served to approximately 450 patients.

▲One of the rooms in the contagious diseases ward offers a view.

▲One of the rooms the hospital patients passed through.

▲It is said that the hospital walls hide true stories of terror.

▲The hospital is seen as a symbol of immigration in the United States

▲Immigrants who were underweight or had arthritis ran the risk of being deported.

▲The majority of the patients were poor and had come to the United States in search of manual labour.

▲There are many stories about the hospital, which has also served as inspiration for films, TV shows, and books.

▲Many patients carried contagious diseases, such as yellow fever.

▲According to Business Insider, the hospital contained approximately 450 beds, with 14 in each room.

▲The hospital relied on a group of doctors and nurses who performed innovative procedures.

▲According to Business Insider, doctors took just six seconds to determine if a new immigrant was healthy.

▲During almost 20 years of operating, approximately 3,500 patients died in the hospital.

▲This is one of the bathrooms in the contagious diseases wing. Separate bathrooms existed for patients infected with tuberculosis.

▲Business Insider reported that there were rooms exclusively for immigrants who wouldn't pass intelligence tests. They would stay in these rooms until being deported.

▲The hospital was maze-like, spread over 22 buildings with numerous rooms.

▲Some of the treatments and procedures performed would be considered abusive today, such as pouring hydrochloric acid on patients' scalps to get rid of lice.

▲Interior view of one of the hospital bedrooms.

▲In the era before antibiotics, laundries like the one in the photo were essential for the extermination of bacteria.

▲Disturbing myths are told about the contagious diseases wing of the complex.

▲Contagious patients were housed in quarantine, with the doors of the wing shut, for 21 days.

▲The buildings tell the stories of millions of men, women, and children who were looking for a better future.

▲The front of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, through which millions of new Americans passed.

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Today, the hospital complex contains 11 pavilions and is open to visitors.