Most recently, he had isolated the causative agent of psittacosis (parrot fever) and showed
that it was a filterable organism that did not grow on the usual bacteriologic media.
In 1924, the United States Public Health Service sent Armstrong abroad under a grant
from the Rockefeller Foundation to make a study of laboratory methods and procedures
in European institutions. In March 1932 he delivered the DeLamor Lecture at Johns
Hopkins University and in May 1932 the Cutter Lecture at Harvard, honors awarded for
outstanding contributions in public health both in the United States and abroad.
In recognition of his epidemiological studies, the American Society of Epidemiologists
elected him as its president for 1933 succeeding Professor Milton J. Rosenau of Harvard.
During this period, he was also a member of the Division of Medical Sciences of the
National Research Council.
Dr. Charles Armstrong in the old Hygienic Laboratory-NIH Building in Washington, DC,^
undated, performs an autopsy on a monkey. Courtesy of the National Library of
Medicine.
On June 6, 1933, Dr. Armstrong received his honorary degree at the
Commencement Exercise. At 6:00 PM he attended the Mount Union College Alumni