Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/271

PATHOLOGY WORLDWIDE standing authority in pathology presented a topic, after which there was a free discussion. All medical officers stationed in Washington and vicinity were invited to attend the staff conferences and seminars." 22

The practice of having medical officers detailed for brief periods of observation and training at the Army's center for pathology continued through the war period. Pressure of duties at their home stations and the worldwide dispersion of the Army, however, combined with the crowded conditions at the Museum itself to limit the number of laboratory officers who could receive such training. Altogether, some 150 officers were detailed to see the organization and operation of the Museum-Institute at firsthand, but other means had to be found to make the results of continuing study and research in pathology more widely available.

This was done, in part, through publication of articles of particular interest in the medical scientific press. For more detailed and intensive study, however, the printed word alone, even with photographic or photomicrographic illustrations, was not enough. For such students of particular topics, the Museum. Institute set up an extensive service, making study sets available to all Army laboratories, to keep medical officers throughout the Army informed about the pathology of the diseases prevalent during the war.

These study sets consisted of slides for microscopic study, reinforced by printed syllabuses or atlases illustrated by photographs or photomicrographs of the diseases with which they dealt. The sets were of two sizes, 100 slides and 25 slides. The larger sets covered the pathology of major specialties such as ophthalmology, otolaryngology, orthopedic surgery, neurology, dermatology, gynecology, serology, and dental and oral surgery— in general, the specialties in which active registries had been established by the time of the entrance of the United States into the Second World War.

The smaller sets dealt, for the most part, with specific diseases, among them being lesions of the lymph nodes and the thyroid gland, tumors of certain organs, interstitial pneumonitis or viral pneumonia, the various types of encephalitis, and the several diseases traceable to different forms of fungus. During 1945, the last year of active hostilities, a total of 1,669 stud Y sets were sent out on loan, approximately 90 percent of which went to Army installations and the remainder to civilian doctors." 23