Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/380

368 succeeded by Dr. Alfred Plaut, of the Institute staff, as Curator, with Lt. Col. Harvey W. Coddington, MSC, USA, as Assistant Curator. In the few months during which this arrangement was in effect, Dr. Plaut devoted most of his attention to the Cornell Museum, which was housed in the AFIP building, and Colonel Coddington attended mostly to the affairs of the rest of the Museum.

In March 1957, Colonel Coddington became Curator of the Museum, the first Medical Service Corps officer to do so. His task was described as "maintaining two unique collections, both devoted to the * * * preservation and display of selected medical material of historical and scientific worth." Among the new exhibits shown were those of "Space Biology," "Psychiatry in Operation Deepfreeze," "Medical Aspects of Aircraft Investigations," and "Women in Medicine." During the year, 15 guest exhibits were shown. In 1957 also, the task of cataloging the Museum's collection of nearly 500 microscopes (fig. 34, pp. 86-87)— probably the world's largest and most representative collection of the basic tool of the pathologist — was completed. In 1957, also, the number of visitors to the Museum exceeded 200,000 persons for the first time, reaching 221,000.

Early in 1958, Colonel Coddington returned to his duty in the Office of The Surgeon General, and was succeeded at the Museum by Col. Albert E. Minns, also of the Medical Service Corps of the Army. The new Curator was a graduate of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Buffalo, and the University College of the University of Maryland. In a service of 3^ years as Curator, he sought to give the Museum a "living atmosphere" by the rotation and refurbishing of 218 out of a total of 715 exhibits shown in that period.

In April 1959, the Cornell Museum was moved out of the Institute building and installed intact in a suitable room, access to which was limited to the medical profession, in the Chase Hall quarters of the Museum. In this year, also, the number of visitors to the Museum rose to 363,000 — by far the highest number in any previous year.

Even this record, averaging 1,000 visitors daily— the Museum being open to the public 365 days a year — was broken in the next year, i960, when the number of visitors reported went up to 587,000. For the first 11 months of the year, visitors came to the temporary quarters in Chase Hall which had been home to the Museum for 13 years, but which was scheduled for demolition early in 1961.

In November and December i960, therefore, the Museum moved into quarters shared with other Government agencies in another temporary building designated as "Tempo S" and located only a block away, at Jefferson Drive between Sixth and Seventh Streets, SW. The move was well planned and smoothly performed, with the laboratory and exhibit materials moved out of the