Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/367

LIFE IN THE NEW BUILDING 355 torial processing of scientific articles for publication in the numerous learned journals that make up the medical press. 16

The noteworthy increases in the research and educational output of the Institute following the move into the new building were not achieved at the expense of the Institute's functions of diagnosis and consultation. True, the number of cases received did not materially increase between 1954, when 75,000 cases came into the old building, and 1958, when the number received in the new quarters reached its high point of 76,000, and actually it declined to 54,000 in 1959; 60,000 in i960; and 57,000 in 1961. The declines were largely due to the effect of budgetary limitations on the Veterans' Administration, which caused a reduction in the number of cases from that source, and also to a trend to refer to the Institute, for consultative services, only the more difficult cases, thereby requiring that more time be spent by the pathologist on the average case. "The corresponding supportive help and reports were becoming still more specialized than in the previous years," said the annual report for 1960. "Numerous instances were recorded during the year whereby the findings of our staff influenced an alteration in the course of therapy." 17

Cases received by the Radiation Injury Branch, more familiarly known as the A-Bomb Unit, constitute a special category. The number of these cases sent from Japan by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission laboratories at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years 1955-1961 exceeded 27,000, virtually the same number that had been received in the preceding 7 years since 1948. The Institute in Washington thus has become the repository for surgical and post mortem specimens of materials from more than 54,000 persons who were exposed to the blast of the first atomic bombs. The function of storage alone, however, does not give a proper picture of the Institute's participation in the scientific analysis and utilization of these materials (fig. 118). In furtherance of its functions of education, research, and consultation, whether for immediate application or for future study and evaluation, the resources of the Institute are available for study by qualified investigators. These resources, in addition to the 54,000 specimens, include the largest collection in this country of early Japanese reporting of the overall effects of nuclear explosions, along with more than 200 translations of Japanese scientific reports dealing with radioactive injury, hematology, and pathology.

From years of experience in the management of large collections of the raw materials of pathology, the Institute has developed methods for their