Armstrong – Table of Contents

were the Laboratory of Tropical Diseases, the Laboratory of Biologics Control and the
Rocky Mountain Laboratory). The Rocky Mountain Laboratory received equal
administrative status as part of new NMI, and the heart and dental activities were placed
in their own newly created Institutes. In 1955 the NMI morphed into the National
Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) with many resultant changes both
in LID and NIAID. During the period of 1948 to 1952 when the organizational changes
occurred or were in the process of occurring while I was at NIH, the only thing that
penetrated to my level of awareness as a junior officer was just the changes in the office
stationery.
In January 1948 I was able to meet with Dr. Armstrong. I was then in rotation at
the Forest Hills Hospital, part of the Massachusetts Memorial (Hospital) complex. This
phase of my internship was a mix of medicine and surgery without obstetrics or
pediatrics. I had to maneuver three days off continuously from a Thursday to a Saturday
with a report back to duty on a Sunday. To compensate for this “vacation time”, I had to
work three extra weekends. I took a roomette on the night train from Boston to
Washington, D.C. Arriving at Union Station, and, ignorant of local geography and
unacquainted with the local transportation system, I asked a bemused information clerk
about “the train to Bethesda”. I finally made my way by taking the streetcar (long-since
gone) from Union Station to Friendship Heights in Chevy Chase, Maryland and then the
bus up Wisconsin Avenue through a semi-rural downtown Bethesda to the NIH-Naval
Medical (Hospital) bus stop.
Miss Virginia Burlingame, Dr. Armstrong’s gracious and efficient secretary, greeted me
initially at the Laboratory. (She later confessed to me that she enjoyed greeting the young