Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/219

202 quests — a use which increased approximately eightfold while the work was being done at the Museum. 19

Still another new activity of the post-World War I period, which helped to intensify the turn taken by the Museum toward becoming an institute of pathology, was the designation of the Museum as the location of the central exchange for pathology specimens of the American and Canadian Sections of the International Association of Medical Museums. This work had been carried on, somewhat informally and in a limited way, as an addition to her other duties, by Dr. Maude E. Abbott of McGill University who, over the years, had been the mainspring of the work of the International Association. In the spring of 1921, Prof. James W. Jobling of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, brought to a head the rather formless discussions of the subject of a central exchange by a letter to The Surgeon General of the Army suggesting the establishment of such an arrangement, to be housed and administered by the Army Medical Museum. The subject was submitted to Major Callender for his recommendation. Major Callender strongly urged the adoption of Dr. Jobling's suggestion, saying in a memorandum of 13 April to The Surgeon General, that the establishment of such an exchange at the Museum would be of material benefit "by bringing the Museum into the closest contact with our medical educational institutions" by rendering to them a most valuable service and, at the same time, would enable the Museum to strengthen its collections.

The Surgeon General agreed, the Secretary of War approved and authorized the issue of a revocable lease for the necessary quarters at the Museum, and The Surgeon General authorized the officers at the Museum to undertake the administrative details. On 1 May 1922, the Museums Association authorized the removal of the central bureau for the preservation of results of medical research and the exchange for pathological specimens from Montreal to Washington. In an editorial in Bulletin VIII of the International Association of Medical Museums, Major Callender said:

The central bureau for the preservation of the results of medical research will have a permanent file of records entirely independent from those of the Museum as a whole, and separate cabinets for slides and cases for specimens representing the result of original research. It will be kept carefully under suitable safeguards to prevent loss and will be open for consultation under adequate supervision to those qualified to consult it. 20