Armstrong – Table of Contents

The otherwise impeccable research reputation of the Hygienic Laboratory-NIH-
Division- Laboratory of Infectious Diseases became tarnished in the early 1950s by the
fraudulent activity of an investigator working in an anomalous research and
administrative entity housed within the new Memorial Laboratory. This entity, although
physically within the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, was under the control of the
Office of the Associate Director of NIH, Dr. Norman H. Topping. He had achieved
honors and recognition for his work on typhus vaccine and Rocky Mountain spotted
fever. Among these honors was the Bailey K. Ashford Research Award in Tropical
Medicine in 1943. This award, financed by the Eli Lilly Company, was awarded to young
investigators under the age of 35 years who had made significant scientific discoveries.
Topping’s career advancement also suggested political influence or favoritism either
within or without the Public Health Service. In April 1948, he was promoted to the rank
of medical director (Navy equivalent of captain) and eight months later to assistant
surgeon general, equivalent of rear admiral. In 1948, Dr. Thomas Parran named him
Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health. Topping, apparently, was very
friendly with Dr. Parran and with Dr. Dyer, the Director of NIH, who was scheduled to
retire in several years (44). The relationship between Armstrong and Topping never
seemed to have been particularly cordial, and was apparently cool and distant from the
time when Topping first arrived at the NIH in July 1937 (45). The author (EAB) met
Topping on two occasions. The first was on August 1, 1948 in his Associate
Administrator’s office where the author received a very perfunctory welcome to the NIH.
The second occasion was in July 1950 at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton,