Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/175

THE "PICKLE FACTORY" PERIOD workers who * * * all but forgot that while parasitology is of fundamental importance, certainly interesting, and approaches the exact in science, the organisms themselves do not constitute disease but must be coordinated with morbid anatomical processes." In the prevailing neglect of morbid anatomy, Dr. Lamb retained his interest and "preserved specimens essential to the study of diseases including those caused by parasities." 16

Major Whitmore was followed as Curator of the Museum on 4 August 1915, by Col. Champe Carter McCulloch, Jr. (fig. 52), who had been for 2 years previously librarian, and who combined the duties of librarian and curator until 23 June 1916, when he was succeeded as Curator by Col. William Otway Owen. Like Colonel McCulloch, the new Curator was a medical graduate of the University of Virginia. He had been retired from the Army for disability in line of duty in 1905, after 23 years of service, but in 1916 was recommissioned and assigned to duty at the Museum.

Through all changes of curators and all shifts of interest and emphasis, the collections of the Museum continued to grow. In 1906, when the abortive reclassification was undertaken, the collections numbered 34,338; 10 years later, they had grown to 47,313 specimens.

But despite growth in the absolute size of the collections, the relatively reduced interest in morbid anatomy led to a decline in status of the Museum to such a point that it came to be called by the scornful appellation of "the pickle factory" 17 — a name which it bore until the events and demands of the Nation's next war demonstrated once more the vital need for a repository of materials for the study of pathological anatomy, physiology, chemistry, parasitology, and bacteriology in balanced relation to the prevention, diagnosis, and cure of disease.