Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: Its First Century 1862-1962/Chapter XV

by Robert S. Henry

CHAPTER XV

New Name, New Home,

New Responsibilities

The 8oth Congress, it will be recalled, passed in June 1948 the bill which became Public Law 626— a law intended to pave the way toward obtaining a new home for the Army Institute of Pathology but which proved to be, instead, a roadblock on the legislative path toward that long-sought objective.

The genesis of the legislation was in H.R. 4122, introduced in the House of Representatives by Walter G. Andrews of New York on 9 July 1947, to authorize construction at various military installations. As introduced, the bill made no provision for the new Institute, an oversight which was corrected by an amendment proposed in the report of the Committee on the Armed Services, on 23 July 1947. In explanation of the amendment, the Committee reported that the proposed building to be erected at Forest Glen, Md., which included provision for a 1,000-bed hospital, would "be the nucleus of an Army medical research and graduate teaching center * * *." Such a center, the Committee reported, was an "urgent and immediate" need, due to the "comprehensive and global nature of modern military medicine" if the Medical Department was "to fulfill its mission of protection and care of troops, to keep pace with worldwide developments of significance to military medicine and to maintain a productive relationship with the medical profession at large * * *. The Army Institute of Pathology and medical museum are presently housed in an antiquated building which seriously limits the important functions of this institution. Plans for the replacement of this building were interrupted by World War II and further delay would limit the valuable work of the institution to both Army and civilian medicine." 1^[1]

Before Congress acted on this bill, it was decided that no additional hospital beds for Army use were to be provided in the Washington area. In view of this decision, Surgeon General Raymond W. Bliss asked the Budget Officer of the Department of the Army, and the Office of the Chief of Engineers to have the language of the bill amended by omitting the authorization for the new hospital, reducing the amount authorized for planning from $850,000 to $600,000, and revising the language specifying Forest Glen as the location of the Institute building to read "Forest Glen or vicinity"— language which was deemed to be broad enough to apply to either the Army Medical Center on the Walter Reed reservation, the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., or the Forest Glen location.

Legislative Tangles

The item in the enabling legislation which authorized the new Institute building was redrawn, leaving out the hospital feature and reducing, by $250,000, the amount authorized for plans of the smaller facility but, through some inadvertence or misunderstanding, leaving the Forest Glen designation unchanged. 2^[2]

With the legislation in this shape, it was decided to locate the new building on the Walter Reed reservation, and preliminary plans were undertaken by the architectural firm of Faulkner, Kingsbury, and Stenhouse, with the assistance of a planning group which included Brig. Gen. Raymond O. Dart and Col. A. L. Tynes, Chief of the Hospital Construction Branch of the Surgeon General's Office. To this group, there was added Maj. Colin F. Vorder Bruegge of the Medical Corps of the Army, who was transferred from Walter Reed General Hospital to serve as Assistant to the Director of the Institute, and his representative in matters pertaining to the new building. In this position Colonel (as he came to be) Vorder Bruegge rendered outstanding service. 3^[3]

Planning, perforce of a preliminary character, was started in October 1948, only a month before the Comptroller General ruled that the expenditures authorized by Public Law 626 could not be made in relation to any site other than Forest Glen. Nevertheless, progress was made in preliminary planning through the use of fiscal year 1947 funds which were available up to 30 June 1949, and by 1 June of that year, these plans had been approved by the Government agencies directly concerned— Chief of the Engineers and the Medical Department of the Army. 4^[4] There matters stood for nearly a year, while studies were being made by the Hospital Division of the Bureau of the Budget, particularly directed to the relationship between the Institute and other Federal medical agencies, including those already located at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

In the course of that year, the Department of Defense had come into existence and, as one of the first fruits of that coordination of effort, the Army Institute had become the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, serving all the Armed Forces— a change of status as well as a change of name, which was recognized in the proposed amendment to Public Law 626. In addition to the change of name, the proposed amendments called for location of the new building at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and a reduction in the amount requested for planning from $600,000 to $350,000.

On 11 October 1949, the Bureau of the Budget gave its approval to the submission of the amendment to the Congress, provided that the plans for the new building should be changed so as to eliminate facilities which might duplicate existing medical research work, and to bring about a closer coordination between the new Institute and the Army Medical Center.

One week after this clearance by the Bureau of the Budget, the desired amendments were introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia, as H.R. 6478, and in the Senate by Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia (for Senator Millard E. Tydings of Maryland), as S. 2737. On the next day, 19 October 1949, the first session of the 81st Congress ended, without action on the bills. 5^[5]

Congressional Hearings

The House moved first in acting on the amendment to the enabling act when, on 3 February 1950, a subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee held hearings on H.R. 6478. At these hearings, General Dart forcefully depicted the plight of the Institute, with its broad new responsibilities but its old limited and insufficient space. "The greatest handicaps to the further development of the institute," he said, "are the lack of space and the complete absence of experimental facilities in the existing obsolete building. Researches are, therefore, confined to pathologic anatomy and statistical analysis, which sharply limits full utilization of the collection of pathologic material."

As to the relation between the Institute and other Federal medical agencies, General Dart pointed out that the hospital capacity of the agencies which relied upon the Institute as a "national pathology center" — the Armed Forces and the Veterans' Administration — totaled 232,132 beds, while the corresponding figure for Federal agencies not utilizing the Institute as a central laboratory of pathology numbered only 23,469. "Since the greater proportion of the beds operated by the Federal government," he said, "are occupied by military or former military personnel, the responsibility of maintaining the collection of pathologic material for training and research is definitely within the military service.6^[6]

Ten days later, on 13 February 1950, Mr. Lansdale G. Sasscer of Maryland, chairman of the subcommittee which had considered the subject, filed his committee's report recommending passage of H.R. 6539, a bill, introduced by Mrs. Frances P. Bolton of Ohio, which contained the amendatory material as H.R. 6478. One week later, on 20 February, Representative Bolton's bill was passed. In an extension of remarks in the Congressional Record, Mrs. Bolton expressed her appreciation to Chairman Vinson of the Committee on Armed Services for his courtesy in considering her bill, and went on to say: 7^[7]

In modern medicine the Department of Pathology, the laboratory of any hospital or group of hospitals, is the heart of the facility. Accurate diagnosis and consequent treatment is largely dependent upon perfection of laboratory work.

The benefits to be derived from the change of location of the contemplated building have been recognized both by the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army. The fiscal advantage of the savings made possible as well as the value of the broader improvements involved has been given Bureau of the Budget approval. All three recommend passage of this bill.

Passed by the House, H.R. 6539 was sent to the Senate, where further hearings were held on 9 March 1950, with General Dart again appearing as the principal witness.

In answer to a question, General Dart gave an estimate of the final cost of the building, as revised and reduced, as "a little over $10,000,000." "This has been reduced $i,ooo,coo," he added, "as the result of an agreement with the Bureau of the Budget and the Director of Medical Services, in which we agreed to reduce certain of the facilities that we had originally planned, to integrate it into the program at Walter Reed that would have required an additional expense of $411,000 to expand facilities that are already overcrowded. So that with this agreement, the original estimate has been reduced a total of $1,000,000

Figure 88.—Scale model of the new building as planned before the requirement that the structure be blast-resistant compelled a sharp reduction in floor space to stay within the appropriation.

in the building itself, and the saving of $411,000 by eliminating this extra construction."^[8]

At the close of the hearing, the Committee voted unanimously to recommend the measure favorably and, on 19 April 1950, the House bill passed the Senate and was sent to the White House where, on 29 April 1950, President Harry S. Truman signed it to become Public Law 495, 81st Congress, 2d session.^[9]

Any thought that passage of the amendatory enabling act was all that was required to permit the Institute and its architects to go ahead with final plans and specifications was strictly illusory, for once more, overriding fiscal policies intervened. On 4 May 1950, less than a week after the new law went into effect, the Director of the Budget Bureau informed the Secretary of Defense that funds for the new Institute building would be withheld, unless the cost of the building should be reduced from the original estimate of $11,004,041 by 40 percent, or to approximately $6,800,000. This meant, as a restudy of the plans showed, the elimination from the plans of the entire public museum wing, a 500-seat auditorium, the public vestibule and lobby, two large bulk storage areas, and—most serious of all—the elimination of space equivalent to two entire floors in the laboratory services wing (fig. 88).

To achieve such reductions meant concentrating upon one floor the laboratories planned for three floors; eliminating the seminar-type teaching laboratories on two floors; cutting in half the space devoted to the American Registry of Pathology; reducing the working library from 25,000 volumes to 15,000; reducing the facilities for experimental animal research by 50 percent; reducing the Medical Illustration Service by 40 percent; and eliminating the public museum, though retaining the advanced teaching museum area and the museum laboratories.

On 16 May 1950, the whole subject was presented at a formal Bureau of the Budget hearing, at which Maj. Gen. George E. Armstrong, Deputy Surgeon General of the Army, explained that with these revisions, although the new building would have approximately double the area occupied by the Institute in the old building at 7th and Independence Avenue, it still "would provide space for only the basic activities of the Institute at the time of occupancy" and should, therefore, be designed so that wings could be added to care for expansion.

A Bomb-Resistant Structure

Representatives of the Bureau of the Budget "agreed to support the revised plan and promised to release funds for final planning in the near future' " 10^[10]— but there were other obstacles to meet and overcome. On a Sunday morning in June 1950, the North Korean Reds crossed the 38th parallel of North latitude and advanced against the Republic of Korea. The United Nations, led by the United States, came to the aid of the Republic. Presumably, because of a greater awareness of the possibilities of war, and doubtless, sharpened by the fact that the Soviet Union had burst its first atomic bomb, a Presidential directive, passed on by the Budget Bureau to The Surgeon General, required that the new building must be designed to meet the specifications of the National Security Resources Board for bomb-resistant structures.

Final and definite specifications for building bomb-resistant structures had not at that time been completed by the National Security Resources Board but, acting upon an estimate that conformity with the bomb-resistant requirement would add 10 percent to the cost of the Institute building, the Bureau of the Budget increased its May allowance of $6,800,000 by that percentage, to a total of $7,480,000, including the $350,000 for planning and the balance of $7,130,000 for construction. New plans had to be drawn to incorporate the bomb-resistant features with the expectation that the plans, drawn in the final weeks of 1950, with the cooperation of the Protective Construction Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers, and the National Security Resources Board, would receive Board approval early in 1951.

Efforts were made, without success, to have the full original estimate of $11,004,041 included in the military budget for fiscal year 1951. Failing in this, the proponents of the new Institute undertook to get the $7,130,000 for construction, according to the revised plans of May 1950, included in the fiscal year 1952 military budget.11^[11]

Before this could be done, however, the impact of the Korean war called for a revision of the entire military program and necessitated the filing of a second supplemental fiscal year 1951 budget of high-priority items. The $7,130,000 item was included in the Medical Department figures in two bills, introduced in the House of Representatives by Mr. Vinson on 11 December 1950— H.R. 9893, an authorization, and H.R. 9920, an appropriation. The bills passed the House on 15 December 1950, and the Senate on 21 December. Both were signed by President Truman on 6 January 1951, to become Public Law 910 and Public Law 911, 81st Congress, 2d and closing session. 12^[12]

Going Ahead on the New Building

Before the legislative obstacles and delays were finally surmounted, General Dart, the vigorous leader of the movement for the new building, had retired on the last day of July 1950, and had been succeeded by another vigorous advocate of the new Institute, Col. (later Maj. Gen.) Elbert DeCoursey (fig. 89).

The new Director was a native of Kentucky, and a graduate of the University of Kentucky, with the M.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He joined the Medical Corps of the Army in 1929, had served as pathologist at several major Army hospitals, and had been active in research in the field of atomic energy and radiobiology.

The retiring Director, General Dart, was signally recognized by the publication of an entire number of The Military Surgeon in his honor. Issued in October 1951, the issue contained forewords by Maj. Gen. George E. Armstrong, who had succeeded General Bliss as The Surgeon General of the Army; by Rear Adm. H. Lamont Pugh, Surgeon General of the Navy; by Maj. Gen.

Figure 89.—Brig. Gen. Elbert DeCoursey, second Director, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1950-1955.

Harry G. Armstrong, Surgeon General of the Air Force, and by Brig. Gen. Elbert DeCoursey, successor to General Dart at the Institute; an appreciation by Col. James M. Phalen, editor of the journal; and an acknowledgment by Dr. Hans F. Smetana, head of the Pathology Division of the Institute and chair man of the editorial committee which was responsible for the tribute to General Dart.

The body of the issue contained 20 scientific papers, prepared by 34 authors who were, or had been, connected with the Institute. Dr. Smetana assembled these papers, "under the guidance of Doctors Howard T. Karsner and Balduin Lucké."13^[13]

General DeCoursey, with the continuing help of Colonel Vorder Bruegge, drove ahead on the final steps toward translating, from sheets of drawing paper to the reality of concrete and steel, the building which had been authorized and for which the appropriation had been made (fig. 90).

Release of the appropriated funds was held up for almost 4 months because of administrative delays, but the time was not entirely lost. The delay afforded an opportunity to submit the preliminary drawings, as revised, to a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board, held on 31 March 1951. At this meeting, Mr. Slocum Kingsbury, of the architectural firm, outlined the essential features of the bomb-resistant plan, and Colonel Vorder Bruegge, whose part in planning the interior floor plans can hardly be overestimated, used visual aids to demonstrate the arrangements, which became the subject of active and keenly critical review by the Board. Close attention was paid to the facilities for investigative laboratories, which were to be grouped on both sides of a service space in which the pipes, cables, and conduits were to rise, with outlets to each laboratory. The Board recommended that these utilities should include piping for hot and cold water, steam, compressed air and vacuum, and heavy-duty electrical lines. These and other recommendations of the Board were included in the final set of preliminary drawings, completed in April 1951. 14^[14]

On 8 May 1951, the Washington District Office of the Corps of Engineers, under whose direction the construction was to proceed, employed the firm of architects which had drawn the preliminary plans to complete the drawings necessary for letting construction contracts — a task which involved making more than 250 sheets of drawings, including more than 50 sheets for the electrical installations alone, and which required more than 6 months to finish. 15 ^[15]

Breaking Ground

Meanwhile, preparation of the site for the new building was started on 10 July 1951, with the traditional ground-breaking ceremonies. General

Figure 90.—Lt. Col. Colin F. Vorder Bruegge, who was of immense assistance in developing the details of the new building.

DeCoursey, who presided, presented to the group of some 600 in attendance, the curators and the director who, since 1918, had sought a new building—Brig. Gen. George R. Callender, "who started the American Registry of Pathology"; Col. Virgil H. Cornell, "who modernized the Museum exhibits"; Col. James E. Ash, "who transformed the organization into an Institute of Pathology" and who upon that day had telephoned from Buffalo, N.Y., to express his disappointment at being unable to attend; and Brig. Gen. Raymond O. Dart, "who extended the Institute's services to all the Armed Forces, and who successfully laid the groundwork that obtained the new building."

Among the other distinguished guests presented by General DeCoursey were Fred A. McNamara, Chief of the Hospital Branch, Bureau of the Budget, introduced as "the sympathetic man who learned of our plight, saw the need, and obtained the necessary executive support"; Dr. Arnold Rich of the Johns Hopkins University, the current chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board; and the three deputies for the Surgeons General who formed die Board of Governors of the AFIP— Col. Hugh R. Gilmore, Jr., for the Army; Rear Adm. John Q. Owsley for the Navy, and Col. John F. Dominik for the Air Force.

Maj. Gen. Paul H. Streit, Commanding General of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, welcomed the assemblage to the ground-breaking ceremony. Of the three ceremonies customary in connection with the construction of new buildings — the breaking of ground, the laying of the cornerstone, and the day of dedication — he described the ground-breaking as the "least spectacular" but the most "soul-satisfying occasion," as it "represents, at last, a beginning— a first evidence that dreams and hopes and plans have crystallized into reality" (fig. 91).

Yet, General Streit said, "we are not uncovering the sod on a new idea; we are celebrating the ripening — the coming-of-age — of an old one. The 'Army Medical Museum,' as the institution was first called, was authorized by the young and forward-thinking Surgeon General Hammond, in the early days of the Civil War. The plan to include the Museum as an integral part of a medical center was proposed by Lt. Col. William Cline Borden in the early post-Spanish-American War period. Surgeon General Ireland, one of the great Army surgeons general, secured the necessary land in 1919 and made it a part of the hospital grounds."

Voicing "our great pride in the past accomplishments of the late Army Medical Museum," he declared that with the additional support of the other services "together we can forge an even more illustrious future."

Speaking for one of the "sister services," Rear Adm. C. J. Brown, Deputy Surgeon General of the Navy, struck a keynote when he said :

It is, to me, an important and most interesting happenstance that the first permanent edifice to be built under the aegis of the unification of the Armed Forces should he. not an

Figure 91.—Programs for the three ceremonial steps in the erection of the AFIP building.

arsenal, not a tank factory nor an airplane plant, but an institute equally useful in peace as well as in war, devoted to the cause of humanity, scientific advancement, and international Medicine.

Speaking for Surgeon General Harry G. Armstrong of the Air Force Brig. Gen Earl Maxwell emphasized the point that the Air Force had been able to utilize the services of the Institute and would "continue to enjoy that privilege * *. There is no other repository anywhere which can supply us with so much valuable information on the causes, effect, and treatment of many epidemic and tropical diseases."

Continuing, the Air Force spokesman said :

Infectious jaundice, typhus, malaria, cholera, high altitude frost bite and various other exposure problems are but a few of the host of diseases and conditions which confront our military personnel in varying environments in all parts of the world. In its aims and purposes, the Institute represents the hard core of our attack on disease and war injuries which ordinarily take such a terrific toll of military effectiveness * * *. In these days of increasingly devastating conflicts, this institution will become of even greater importance than during the past. New types of warfare, including atomic weapons, make additional pathological facilities mandatory for the prevention and treatment of casualties.

Vice Adm. Joel T. Boone, MC, USN (Ret.), and Medical Director of the Veterans' Administration, spoke of the deep interest and intense pride taken by that administration in the achievements and advances by the AFIP. General Callender, he noted, was now Chief of the Pathology Division of the Veterans' Administration, which took "pride and pleasure in the very real part it is playing in this important example of medical teamwork."

Maj. Gen. George E. Armstrong, Surgeon General of the Army, the principal speaker for the occasion, emphasized "the splendid achievements of several who have played a part in today's culmination of these years of dreaming and working," mentioning General Callender, Colonel Cornell, General Dart, and Colonel Ash. "It is through these individuals," he said, "together with the Surgeons General of the Army of the past several decades, some of whom are here this afternoon, that finally after years of effort we come to the fruition of our vision."

Emphasizing the part played by the Hospital Branch of the Bureau of the Budget, General Armstrong expressed appreciation of the contributions of Mr. McNamara and his associates— "because, believe it or not, in the final sessions that we have been through no professional person, or persons, have fought any harder than these individuals representing the Executive portion of our Government." Disclaiming any intent to recite the progress of the Institute through its "four-score and nine years" of life, General Armstrong contented himself with a brief account of General Hammond and his "far reaching, and, I am sure, at that time considered visionary, recommendations" and invited attention "to the steps which took us from the Museum stage, which, in the minds of the public both lay and professional, tended to emphasize the dead and the dead past" to the newer and broader institute whose "primary concern is the living, and not the dead."

At the conclusion of General Armstrong's address, Colonel Vorder Bruegge handed the ceremonial shovel to General Dart, who explained its symbolism. "It is," he said, "from the traditions of the past in the old Museum,"—the blade was "made from the hinges of cases in the old museum, some of which go back to the days when the Museum was located in Ford's Theater; the mold was made in the Institute; the casting made by the Naval Gun Factory in Washington; the shaft was turned from wood saved from the old cases when they were replaced by newer and sturdier ones; and the handle was made from a microscope in the old Museum."

"Most important of all," he said, "and the symbol of the part that this Institution is going to play in American medicine in the future, is a microscope slide that was prepared by one of the first members of the staff of the Museum, Dr. J. J. Woodward, one of the earliest photomicroscopists in the United States. This slide, now inlayed in the shaft of the shovel, has been preserved since before 1880."

Handing the shovel to General Armstrong, General Dart stressed the fact that he was "merely the agent of many, many individuals, men and women, in the military service and in civilian life, who have worked so hard for so many years to bring this occasion about."

The occasion was climaxed by the turning of a clod by General Armstrong, after which the elaborately symbolic shovel and the first clod were turned over to the Museum for preservation (fig. 92).^[16]

The breaking of ground and work of preparing the site for the building—work which involved moving bodily five large frame residences (fig. 93) to another part of the Walter Reed reservation—did not bring an end to the planning of detailed features. Rather, it was discovered that "throughout the design period plans for a building of this type never become static." Particularly was this true of the new home for the Institute, not only in the period of design but also in the period of construction, and even in the finished building,

Figure 92.—The turning of the sod. A. Maj. Gen. George E. Armstrong wields the ceremonial spade.

because of the in-built flexibility of its plan, a feature for which Colonel Vorder Bruegge was in a large degree responsible.

The building is essentially a grouping together of units of space, in a repetitive modular arrangement under which advance preparation was made for the quick, easy, and inexpensive rearrangement of partitions between units. The module of space which was to determine the overall size was taken to be 11 by 20 feet for a laboratory unit in the central core of the building, and 11 by

Figure 92.—Continued. B. The symbolic spade.

18 feet as a unit of office space along the outer walls. All necessary utility outlets were to be available in each unit, while larger units could be created by the ready removal of partitions. As part of the planning, the District Engineer built a mockup of an individual laboratory module in which it was possible to pretest ideas for the placement of equipment and fixtures, including laboratory benches for both sitdown and standup use, and also to try out flooring materials and different color schemes.

With excavation underway (fig. 94), the planning group turned its attention to the equipment for the new building—an activity which was to become a major undertaking in 1952. On the first working day of that year, the District Engineer placed sets of the contract drawings in the hands of construction companies who desired to bid on the job, allowing 60 days for study of the plans and specifications. Bids were received from nine prime contractors, ranging from $4,924,000 to $5,787,000—figures which did not include several features, such as elevators, structural steel purchased in advance, and electrical switchgear, amounting to a total of $865,000. The low base bidder was the firm of Cramer and Vollmerhausen, of Washington, to which the contract was let on 7 March 1952.^[17]

Laying the Cornerstone

The outer walls of the building were halfway up when, on 20 October 1953. the second ceremonial occasion in its progress was observed with the laying

Figure 93.—Clearing the site of the new building.

of the symbolic cornerstone. Welcoming the assembled group of some 1,500 persons to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Gen. Leonard D. Heaton, Commanding General of the Center, expressed the pleasure and pride

Figure 94.—Excavation troubles.

with which he viewed the addition to the medical installations on the Walter Reed grounds of "this great center of pathology, unique and unparalleled in the field of medicine."

The principal address at the cornerstone laying was delivered by Dr. Melvin A. Casberg (fig. 95), Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health and Medical), who, in a reminiscent mood, traced the development of "this great new Armed Forces Institute of Pathology as the culmination of the dreams of a host of distinguished men of American medicine." The removal from the "old red brick building," with all its associations and atmosphere, stirred many vivid recollections—of John Shaw Billings whose "professional prestige, influence and foresight did much to obtain the close cooperation of these military establishments, medical schools * * * and other scientific institutions"; of Walter Reed who "in that same building completed his work on typhoid fever," and "there, he and Carroll formulated plans for the famous yellow fever studies."

World War I, Dr. Casberg said, "saw a resurgence of activity at the Museum," and, in 1920, the "more recent era" was initiated by General Cal

Figure 95.—Cornerstone laying ceremony. Dr. Melvin A. Casberg addresses the audience and spreads the mortar for the cornerstone.

lender, striking out in a direction in which his successors had continued, with ever-enlarging responsibilities. Notable among these enlargements was the designation of the Institute as the central laboratory of pathology for the "rapidly expanding medical program of the Veterans' Administration."

"This, then, is the cornerstone of American medicine of today," Dr. Casberg said, "representing the united aims and efforts of civilian physicians as well as those in the Armed Forces."

Giving instances of the Institute's accomplishments in its three basic activities— consultation and diagnostic services, teaching and investigation — Dr. Casberg continued : 18^[18]

Some may have considered the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology as a repository of museum specimens and tissues dusty with age; specimens deposited to satisfy the morbid curiosity of the visiting populace. Nothing could be further from the truth, for housed within the walls of this institution are the scientific keys which have and will continue to unlock the secrets of disease. Here is demonstrated the close collaboration between Armed Forces and civilian medicine, a joint effort so smoothly woven that the identity of individual civilian and military threads are lost in the warp and woof of the composite produce * * *.

As I spread the mortar which will unite the cornerstone with this building, it shall be my prayer that all our medical resources, civilian as well as military, similarly shall be cemented in a united fight against disease and for the preservation of our country.

The building which was thus treated as a symbol of collaboration in medicine was so nearly completed by September 1954, when the International Congress of Clinical Pathology and the triennial meeting of the International Society for Geographic Pathology were held in Washington, that the delegates from foreign countries were able to visit it and inspect its features, inside and out. 19^[19]

Roof and floor slabs, also of heavily reinforced concrete, furnish internal bracing of the mass, as do transverse concrete walls and the greater depth of the mass due to the double-corridor design of the interior. Necessary openings in the outer walls of the central mass are closed with blast-resistant doors. The heart of the building is in the central block of research laboratories, located on both sides of a 3-foot-wide "mechanical core," extending lengthwise of the building, through which each laboratory is supplied with such essentials as

electricity, water, gas, and compressed air. Surrounding this rectangular block of laboratories is a passageway, separating the laboratories from the offices which are ranged against the windowless outer walls. At the ends of the building up

Figure 96.—Typical floor plan of new Armed Forces Institute of Pathology building.

to the height of four stories above ground are windowed "blisters" containing offices. Blast-resistant doors on each floor afford communication between the main mass of the building and the offices in the two outer projections (fig. 96).^[20]

By the time the building was inspected by the international visitors, installation of equipment and furniture had begun and, on 20 January 1955, the monthly meeting of the Medical Service Corps of the Army was held in the new AFIP building auditorium. At this first meeting in the hall, which had not yet received its name of Dart Auditorium, Col. Byron L. Steger, MC, of the Institute staff, presented a paper on "Field Medical Services in Korea."^[21]

By mid-February 1955, the Institute had begun to move into its new quarters. The movement, skillfully planned by General DeCoursey, was completed with a minimum disruption of work in mid-March, but it was not until May that the building was formally dedicated.^[22]

Dedication

Two days, 26-27 May 1955, were devoted to the dedicatory exercises (fig. 97). On the afternoon of the first day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered

Figure 97.—Service Stripe, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center newspaper, devotes the first page of its 27 May 1955 issue to coverage of the dedication ceremonies of the preceding day and the scientific program to be given on the day of issue.

Figure 98.—President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the new building.

the address of dedication, before an outdoor audience of 3,000 persons (fig. 98). That evening, Dr. Wendell M. Stanley of the University of California, noted biochemist and Nobel laureate, gave the principal scientific address. Appropriately entitled "New Horizons," Dr. Stanley's address dealt with what is known and what is not yet known in the "borderline between the living and the nonliving" in the world of the virus.

"About the turn of the century," he said, "there was a something discovered that acted like a cell * * *. This something or other that acted like a cell would pass filters which were known to hold back all of the cells then known and this something would cause disease when applied to certain other susceptible cells. During the disease producing process it would be multiplied many millions of times over * * *. This mysterious something turned out to be a virus * * * smaller than the accepted living cells," but with characteristics "recognized as those of living cells."

In an inspiring lecture, outlining what has been discovered as to these very real materials and posing some of the challenges to further search, Dr. Stanley concluded:

I do not know the answer to this structure of nucleic acid at the molecular level. It is one of the unanswered questions. If this can he answered, if certain other problems of the manner of reproduction of viruses can be answered, I think we will have gone a long way towards explaining the nature of life itself.

On the second day of the dedicatory exercises, 10 scientific papers prepared by 14 current and former members of the Institute staff were presented and discussed.

For the nonscientific generality of the public, these papers, written in technical language and addressed to a technically trained audience, were impressive but not altogether comprehensible. Better understood were the earlier remarks of the President of the United States, who said that he "did not come here to talk scientifically" but to dedicate a "great building" which, he was told, was "arranged better and more efficiently for the conduct of the work here to be done than any other that this country has erected."

In introducing the President, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson spoke of the new building as an example of unification. The President carried the idea further, saying, " * * * some years ago those of us who were advocating unification of the services saw something of this kind in the offing, even though we were ignorant of the exact form these developments would take. For that reason I couldn't be happier that all of the services are combined in this effort * * *.

"And so I dedicate this building to the conquest of disease so that mankind, more safe and secure in body, may more surely advance to a widely shared prosperity and an enduring and just peace." 23^[23]

1. 1 (1) House of Representatives bills, 80th Congress, volume 20, Numbers 4000-4199. (2) H.R. Report Number 1048, 80th Congress, 1st session, volume 5, H.R. File Number 11122. In Miscellaneous Reports, Numbers 864-1114.
2. 2 Letters, Gen. R. W. Bliss to Director of Logistics, General Staff, U.S. Army. 23 December 1948. and 1st indorsement thereto, 3 January 1949. On file in historical records of AFIP.
3. 3 Annual Report, Army Institute of Pathology, 1948, p. 13.
4. 4 (1) Ibid., p. 14. (2) Annual Report. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1949, p. 24.
5. 5 (1) Ibid., pp. 25, 26. (2) Congressional Record, 81st Congress, 1st session. Senate, 18 October 1949, p. 14828, volume 95. part 11. (3) Ibid., House, p. 14964.
6. 6 H.R. Report Number 160, 81st Congress, 2d session, Congressional Record, House of Representatives, 13 February 1950, p. 1779, volume 96, pt. 2. In bound volume number 759, Proceedings and Debates, 1950.
7. 7 Ibid., p. 1980, 20 February 1950.
8. Typewritten copy of report, copied from Committee clerk's unpublished record. On file in historical records of AFIP.
9. U.S. Statutes at Large, volume 64. part 1, p. 96, Chapter 139 (12 Stats. 376).
10. 10 Annual Report, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1950, pp. 10, 11
11. 11 Ibid., p. 12.
12. 12 Congressional Record, 81st Congress, 2d session, House of Representatives, 6 January 1951, page 17139, volume 96, part 12. In bound volume number 769, Proceedings and Debates, 1951.
13. 13 The Military Surgeon, volume 109, number 4, October 1951.
14. 14 (1) Minutes, eighth meeting. Scientific Advisory Board. Exhibit 3. (2) Annual Report. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1951.
15. 15 Ibid., pp. 21, 22.
16. "Annual Report, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. 1951, exhibit 9: Ground Breaking Ceremony.
17. Annual Report, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1952, section III.
18. 18 Annual Report, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1953.
19. 19 Annual Report, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1954, p. 1.
20. Vorder Bruegge, Colin F.: New Building Facilities for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Scientific Monthly 79: 81-89, August 1954.
21. Announcement, in files of AFIP.
22. Annual Report, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1955, p. 3.
23. 23 Dedication, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 26-27 May 1955. Military Medicine 117: 176-306, September 1955.