Armstrong – Table of Contents

associate, Dr. James P. Leake) at the USPHS Hospital in Baltimore; many individuals
waited with scientific interest the autopsy findings that might answer to what degree, if
any, the major illnesses acquired in the laboratory might have contributed to the ailments
leading to his death. Unfortunately, the pathologist in charge of the autopsy shortly
thereafter became incapacitated, and the autopsy findings were never recorded officially.
Miss Armstrong described with gratitude the many doctors and friends who guided
Armstrong’s medical care during his final two years. She acknowledged two men with
affection and appreciation: Dr. Norman B. McCullough and Dr. James P. Leake, both
members of the Public Health Service. Dr. McCullough first came to the Laboratory of
Infectious Diseases in 1951 when he succeeded Dr. Birdsall Carle as Chief of the
Brucellosis Unit. He had been previously at the University of Chicago where he worked
with Dr. C. Wesley Eisele studying salmonella infections in volunteers. He became Chief
of the NIAID Clinical Unit when the Clinical Center opened in 1953. He later became
Chief of the Laboratory of Bacterial Diseases of NIAID. He left NIH in the late 1960s
and became Professor of Microbiology and Public Health and Professor of Medicine at
Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Drs Leake and Armstrong went
back together many years from their days at the Hygienic Laboratory and were close
personal friends as well as professional colleagues. Although “retired”, Dr. Leake, as
already described, kept himself busy with his activities at the National Library of
Medicine.
Charles Armstrong’s passing was duly noted in prominent newspapers with
detailed obituaries: The New York Times, June 23, 1967 (18); The Evening Star
(Washington) June 23, 1967 (19); and The Washington Post, June 23, 1967, (20). A very