Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/261

PATHOLOGY WORLDWIDE topathology. These centers — there were 18 of them altogether, with one or more in each of the nine Service Commands into which the United States was then subdivided — were set up mostly in the laboratories of named general hospitals.6

To these centers, nearby posts and installations sent materials on which diagnostic assistance was required. After screening out those cases on which there were no serious diagnostic doubts or difficulties, the regional centers forwarded to the Medical Museum "such surgical cases as have a possible future administrative or 'followup' value, particularly tumors and those cases requiring final or confirmatory diagnosis." Also forwarded to the Museum were all autopsy materials, including the protocols or records, as well as the tissues involved. 7

As American Forces spread to theaters of active operations, the system of channeling pathological materials and information spread with them, with the chief surgeon of each oversea theater designating a medical general laboratory, usually at the principal general hospital in the area, to serve as its histopathologic center. These centers were called upon to gather and forward the same classes of materials as the regional centers at home, and in addition were asked to send in materials and information about the disease encountered among the peoples of foreign lands, "inasmuch as 'geographic pathology' has become of great importance to the armed forces." The materials sought in this connection included not only tissues from surgery and autopsies but also "insect species that act as disease vectors or are suspected of doing so, poisonous plants, poisonous snakes, and other material of medico-military interest" — a term which covered the vast variety of conditions to be encountered by an Army whose troops were serving in every sort of terrain and climate, all over the world. At the center of this worldwide network of channels, through which pathological materials and records flowed in and diagnostic information flowed out, was the Museum (fig. 77). "The U.S. Army is the only armed force in the world that had this centralization of pathology," said Colonel Ash, "and it has resulted in the largest single accumulation of material in the history of