Armstrong – Table of Contents

undiminished. He made significant contributions in 1946 to Huebner’s unveiling the
mystery of rickettsialpox (55), and, from 1947 to 1949, he was a source of strength to the
investigation of Q fever in Southern California (56). He helped with the launching of the
Coxsackie virus studies in 1949-1950 (33), and he played a prominent role on the
Scientific Committee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (see previous
chapter). He helped with several investigations of cases referred by regional physicians
(57).
His formal retirement from the Public Health Service did not occur until 1950. As
a courtesy, he received the use of several small rooms and access to animal facilities so
that he could still conduct his research studies. He continued to come into the laboratory
daily. Dr. Armstrong never seemed to demonstrate overtly any bitterness about his abrupt
removal as Chief of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, however, his daughter
confided to several senior laboratory investigators at a later date (58) that “ a cabal of
unspecified persons” cut off his career abruptly and prematurely. It is not known to what
extent Dr. Armstrong participated in the ferment of planning for the future growth and
new programs for the burgeoning National Institutes of Health but an organized,
politically inspired intrigue could have blocked his participation (speculative). In any
event, the clear, levelheaded reasoning of Charles Armstrong would have been sadly
lacking.
Armstrong’s final published contributions to information about poliomyelitis
appeared in a series of papers (59) describing his theories to account for the seasonal
incidence of poliomyelitis in the world’s temperate zones. He indicated that there was a
tendency for seasonal variation to be slight in the tropics, with a tendency for outbreaks