Armstrong – Table of Contents

Dr. Charles Armstrong in midyears, dates not recorded.
Courtesy of Mary Emma Armstrong.
Although the building over time did not fulfill its intended purpose, it,
nevertheless, was a prototype for structures intended to provide strict biological safety to
workers in microbiology. Armstrong outlined four main concerns that DID/NIH wanted
the building to address. First, it wanted to spatially separate research on different
diseases. Second, it wanted to control the airflow in and out of every room and working
space in the building. Third, it needed equipment, not designed previously, to protect the
worker against infection. Fourth, it needed an easily enforceable set of rules affecting the
movements of personnel about the building. Armstrong felt that the Laboratory, at the
time of the dedication, provided solutions to these problems.
There were six individual research units, each dedicated to a specific disease or
group of diseases; two units were located on each of three floors and separated by a