Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/390

378 130.—Organizational chart, Department of Pathology, 1 February 1962.

Among the techniques used at the Institute is one applied by the late Lawrence W. Ambrogi (fig. 133), Chief of the Histopathology Laboratories, who served the Institute for all but 4 of the 40 years before his sudden death in December 1960. In the last year of his life, Mr. Ambrogi adopted a new technique which makes possible the distribution of microscopic sections by first-class mail at nominal expense and without fear of breakage. The sections are mounted and sealed inside plastic sheets which can be folded, creased, or crumpled without harm to the sections. Upon arrival at destination, the sections may be cut out of the plastic sheet, mounted between glass slides, and examined by microscope in the usual fashion.

The Professional Records Service of the Department of Pathology includes sections for Receiving and Accessions, Tissue Processing, Professional Files, Machine Records, Medical Statistics, and a Library of Medical Records. The Service maintains "vast and voluminous" files of diagnostic information, both in the form of specimens and on diagnostic cards, of which there are in the files literally millions. The system is designed for ready reference to any case, with cards crossfiled and indexed to the etiology or cause of the disease, and to the topography or location of its lesions. There are thus not less than two diagnostic cards crossfiled and indexed to the etiology or cause of the disease, and to the