Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/279

PATHOLOGY WORLDWIDE his duties as a professional pathologist the task of making the most that could be made of the limited exhibit space remaining, and was successful to a remarkable degree. In this, he was assisted by the installation of new alternating-current lighting to dispel the "1885 gloom" of the decrepit direct-current lighting system in the old building. Testimony to the effectiveness of the captain's efforts is to be found in a staff letter at Christmas time, 1944, in which readers were told, "You'd never know the crusty old place." More formal evidence to the same effect is found in the draft of an inspection report, made in January 1945, which noted that "the museum display has been reset so that it is now more informative and instructive to the general public; it is still, however, of great interest to medical students and to physicians."

The same 1945 inspection report pointed out that the present accession rate in the Institute-Museum was on the order of 20,000 per year, but that "because of the screening function of the histopathologic centers which eliminate such routine materials as tonsils and appendices, almost all of these 20,000 cases present diagnostic problems." In consequence, the case load had grown faster than the staff to handle it. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that "the load * * * now exceeds the capacity of the present personnel" and the inadequacy of a building which was "tremendously overcrowded," the "tissues received for diagnosis or review" were "handled promptly," and reports were sent out by mail, air mail, telegraph or radio, "in accordance with the emergency of the situation." The service of the Army Institute of Pathology, the report said, "has acted as a check on the correctness of diagnosis in all branches of the medical service." 30

The end of hostilities in 1945 brought an uneasy peace to the world, but it saw no great slackening of the work of the Army Institute of Pathology. As the wartime hospitals were inactivated, and their laboratory material was forwarded to the Institute for screening and review, there was a spurt in cases handled. Before this was past, arrangements had been made to have the Army Institute act as the central laboratory of pathology for the Veterans' Administration in much the same way as it did for the Army.