Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/212

THE INSTITUTE IDEA 63.—The "Great Hall" of the Museum in the 1890's.

to research workers facilities for the study of the Museum's rich resources in pathological materials (fig. 64). So long as the Museum was crowded into its half of the old building, however, it was "impossible to furnish working rooms for research purposes," and the Museum's materials could be used by others than its immediate staff only by sending out available materials on loan, upon request by recognized research workers.

Nevertheless, and despite the handicap of limited space and facilities, the Museum was, as The Surgeon General described it in his 1920 report, a very valuable connecting link between the Medical Department of the United States Army and the general medical profession of the United States, from the stand-point of scientific medicine and surgery." Every feasible encouragement was offered for the use of the Museum's collections by civilian physicians, it being "believed that only in this way will the Museum fulfill its larger function of