the patient necessitate a microscopical diagnosis at the earliest possible moment and local facilities for such diagnostic work are not available."
The hospitals so designated were Letterman General Hospital, for the IX Corps area; William Beaumont General Hospital and the Station Hospital at Fort Sam Houston, for the VIII Corps area; Fitzsimons General Hospital, for the VII Corps area; and the Army Medical Museum itself for the I through the VI Corps areas. The officer making the diagnosis was instructed to report by telegraph or radio when, in his judgment, such a course was required. In all cases, specimens were to be furnished to the Museum, together with a copy of the report. Explicit instructions were given for the preparation and shipment of specimens and the writing of autopsy protocols, all of which were to enter the collections of the Medical Museum for final study, review, and preservation.
Inescapable Housekeeping
"There is an enormous amount of work that should be done in rearranging exhibits and developing the material already on hand," said the annual report of the Surgeon General for 1929, "but it must be put aside for the more urgent current demands" of the consultation and diagnostic service which, as the Museum's most important function, "has precedence over all other activities." 8[1]
Although the diagnostic and consultation functions of the Museum had first precedence, there were always inescapable housekeeping chores to be attended to. The Museum's material, stored in the basement, was surveyed, and the portions which had deteriorated and become useless were disposed of. The cleanup was hampered by the chronic shortage of personnel. The task of sorting material, and especially the "enormous amount of facio-maxillary material which had accumulated during the few years after the war" was perhaps made simpler by the adoption, in 1930, of straight alphabetical indexing, which was described as "much simpler and more efficient" than the numerical system of coding adopted in the years just after World War I. Even though there were no new registries set up, "active interest" in the three existing ones was continued. In fact, nearly one-third of all accessions in 1930 were contributed through the route of the registries. 9[2]
In the fall of 1931, Major McNabb (fig. 70) succeeded Major Ash as Curator of the Museum. The new Curator, a native of Tennessee, received his M.D. degree at the University of Pennsylvania. His Army service had
