Armstrong – Acknowledgments
The author was the fortunate recipient of the cooperation and steadfast support of
Ms. Mary Emma Armstrong, Dr. Armstrong’s daughter, in writing this biography. She
contributed a treasure trove of documentation that she had collected and maintained
conscientiously for many years. She had compiled three large loose leaf notebooks
containing personal papers, correspondence, newspaper clippings, magazine articles,
book chapters and other descriptive material detailing various aspects of her father’s life
and activities. In addition, she had kept a brief autobiographical sketch written by her
father as well as the oral autobiographical interview conducted by Dr. Wyndom Miles of
the National Library of Medicine about a year before Dr. Armstrong died. She also
outlined her father’s curriculum vitae and kept account of personal family matters. The
author had frequent and generous access to all of the above material.
Mrs. Harriet Huebner, the widow of Dr. Robert J. Huebner, provided additional
items of source information. Dr. Huebner, a young associate, confidant, and a successor
Chief of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, was unable, due to illness, to complete a
short biography of Dr. Armstrong authorized by the National Academy of Sciences for
one of its volumes of Biographical Memoirs. Dr. Huebner was suffering severe
intellectual impairment caused by rapidly advancing Alzheimer’s disease. Mrs. Huebner
contributed a large packet of reprints covering many of Dr. Armstrong’s major
discoveries along with some of Dr. Huebner’s very sparse marginal notes and
commentary.