Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/362

350 resulted in research support from outside sources, nongovernmental as well as governmental, amounting to more than $700,000, or double the amount of outside support the year before.9

The Institute's program of research covered not only the descriptive morphological and statistical investigations to which research had been largely confined in the old building, but also included projects that were made possible for the first time by the facilities afforded by the new building. In the more than 200 investigations carried out in the first 5 years of occupancy of the new building, there were studies of the biological and biochemical effects of microwaves; the response of cells to acute radiation; the neuropathology of nuclear and cosmic radiation; the structure and functions of various tissues; the effects of toxic agents upon various organs; the performance of motor end-plates where motor nerves join muscle fibers; and studies in leprosy and a variety of tumors.

Much of the enlarged scope of the Institute's program was made possible by advances in the instruments available and their application to research programs. The use of the electron microscope (fig. 116) with its magnifying power on the order of 250,000 diameters enabled the observer to "see" into the interior cellular structure farther than man had seen before with the optical microscope. With such instrumentation and methodology, the pathology of diseases could be "traced beyond the cell to the intracellular and molecular level," as the Director of the Institute put it. 10

One of the vital areas of research which the new building opened up was in experimental pathology, using laboratory animals. In the first year of occupancy of the new building, the Laboratory Animals Branch of the Department of Pathology was set up, with the dual mission of looking after the housing, diet, and health of the animal population maintained within the Institute, and of providing facilities, assistance, and consultation to the staff on matters pertaining to experimental surgery. The population of the animal quarters at the end of 1955 exceeded 3,000. Of these, 1,900 were mice, nearly 400 were rats, more than 600 were guinea pigs, and nearly 300 were rabbits. Dogs numbered 8, swine 16, and cats 24. The average number of animals maintained in the 12 months of 1961 was 2,800 per month. The total number of animals issued during the entire year was over 14,000, of which more than 13,000 were mice, hamsters, and rats, and more than 600 were rabbits and guinea pigs. 11 The Veterinary Pathology Division, responsible for these functions, as well as for studies in