234 GUTH
to posts at the NIH. These included Louis Sokoloff, a professor of pathology
at NYU, George Jay, a geneticist at the Jackson Memorial Laboratory, and
Eugene Roberts, a biochemist from Washington University in St. Louis.Budget Process
In the 1950s, budgeting was primarily an administrative responsibility,
and section chiefs and junior scientists were shielded from the intrica
cies of the process. Items required for the work of the laboratory were
simply ordered by the scientists concerned. If, toward the end of the fis
cal year, there was a shortfall in the institute’s budget, a memo was sent
out requesting that purchases be deferred insofar far as possible until the
beginning of the next fiscal year. This simple and sensible arrangement
left budget calculations in the office of the institute director, and allow
ed the laboratory chiefs great freedom in making the purchases necessary
for their laboratory’s research programs. It had the further (and not
inconsequential) advantage of mitigating internecine competition for
funds among the institute’s laboratories. Windle once expressed appre
ciation that he was not held to a formal, line-item budget, and certainly
the junior scientists appreciated being free of budgetary considerations;
we simply ordered all inexpensive items as we needed them, and discussed
more expensive purchases with our section chiefs before ordering them.
Such budgetary flexibility apparently also allowed for transfer of funds
between institutes. For example, the Laboratory of Neurophysiology was
funded jointly by the NIMH and the NINDB, with four sections with
in the NIMH and two within the NINDB. It is interesting to speculate
on whether such an arrangement would now be considered an accept
able federal accounting practice.Organization of the Laboratory of Neuroanatomical Sciences
When I arrived in Bethesda on July 1, 1954, I found only Windle and
Jan Cammermeyer present, but I was told by Windle that the laboratory
would soon consist of four sections: a Section on Development and
Regeneration under his direction, a Section on Experimental Neuro
pathology under Cammermeyer, a Section on Functional Neuroanatomy
under Grant L. Rasmussen, and a Section on Neurocytology under