Armstrong – Table of Contents

During this chaotic period, Armstrong started his influenza-related activity with
the trip to Fore River, Massachusetts in late September 1918. He performed whatever
duties he was required to accomplish. On November 9, 1918 Surgeon General Rupert
Blue (5) sent him a letter instructing him “to report to the Director, Hygienic Laboratory
(Washington, D.C.) for duty in connection with investigations in regard to the prevention,
etiology and treatment of influenza. On receipt of instructions from the Director,
Hygienic Laboratory, you will proceed for this purpose to such places in the field as may
be necessary.” It was apparently during this trip to the Hygienic Laboratory that he came
under the tutelage of Dr. Wade Hampton Frost (6) from whom he learned the principles
of epidemiology. Dr. Frost was one of the pioneers in the discipline of epidemiology
whose lifelong work helped establish epidemiology as a distinct field of medical
research. A 1903 medical alumnus of the University of Virginia, Dr. Frost (1880-1938)
was a Surgeon (Major) in the USPHS from 1905 to 1929. In 1919, the Service assigned
him as a resident lecturer to the new Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public
Health. In 1929 he resigned from the PHS in order to serve full time as Professor of
Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. From 1931 to 1934 he was the Dean of the School of
Hygiene and Public Health. Dr. Frost was a pioneer in the study of water pollution. He
also conducted important research in poliomyelitis, yellow fever, influenza, diphtheria
and tuberculosis. Dr Frost taught and directed Armstrong’s work on influenza until
Armstrong’s appointment as a USPHS Epidemiological Aide to the State health Officer
of Ohio in 1919.
After Armstrong’s interlude at the Bureau in early November 1918, he maintained
an active travel schedule to various outbreaks of influenza in scattered locales. These