Armstrong – Table of Contents

“clean” (non-contaminated) area housing administrative facilities and personnel. Each
unit had separate elevators for refuse to be dropped into incinerators at opposite ends of
the building. Refuse cans were sterilized in the basement by steam before being returned
to the floors.
The air and airflow were under control from the time the air entered the building
through intakes in the roof until it was drawn off by outlets also on the roof. The clean
areas contained a higher pressure than the contaminated areas so that the air drift was
always toward and not from the location of the infected materials. The air entered at low
velocities through special openings and was drawn toward the infected material on
workbenches and exhausted through a wall slot at the rear of the benches.
The problem of air control not only influenced the architectural scheme of the
Laboratory, but was also a prime consideration in the construction of the newly designed
protective equipment.
Each of the six units had an identical layout. From the clean areas, a double set of
doors served as an air lock for entrance into the working spaces. Once inside, the worker
changed to his distinctive work clothes in a clean dressing room and then entered the unit
proper. Upon leaving the unit, the worker reversed the procedure leaving his work clothes
in the contaminated dressing room where he could also take a shower. He then put on his
other garments in the “clean” room. These procedures did not work out in practice. The
investigators from 1948 onward wore the same blue coveralls going to and from the work
areas. There were no recommendations for wearing head or shoe coverings, nor were
workers encouraged to do compulsive hand washing. Most of the investigators took their
showers at home instead of in the units. Fortunately there were no major infectious