Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/361

Rh was founded just twenty-five years ago as a laboratory of pathology and bacteriology in the old marine hospital at Stapleton, Staten Island. At first all of the work was done by one officer in the intervals of his attendance in the hospital wards. After four years the work was transferred to Washington, where it has been ever since, and until 1894 was housed on one floor of the service office building. About this time the advantages began to be realized of using this laboratory as a training school for officers, supplemented with details abroad affording opportunity for visiting the great centers of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other cities.

Among the earlier subjects taken under consideration were disinfecting methods as applied to quarantine and epidemic practise. These investigations resulted in the elaboration of a system of disinfecting apparatus, together with disinfecting agents and a method for their application, which now stands unrivaled. This laboratory was probably the first to recommend formaldehyde in place of the older disinfectants, steam, carbolic acid and sulphur dioxide. The first authoritative publication on the use of diphtheria antitoxin was issued by the Marine Hospital Service, and the first diphtheria antitoxin made in the United States was produced in the Hygienic Laboratory. Both resulted from personal instruction received by an officer from Behring and Roux, who had separately announced their discovery at a meeting of the International Congress of Medicine at Budapesth.

In March, 1901, congress appropriated $35,000 for the necessary buildings, and directed the cession of five acres of land from the old naval observatory site by the secretary of the navy for the use of the Hygienic Laboratory. After the legislation of July, 1902, which increased the functions of the Marine Hospital Service and changed its name to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, the scope, organization