lender, striking out in a direction in which his successors had continued, with ever-enlarging responsibilities. Notable among these enlargements was the designation of the Institute as the central laboratory of pathology for the "rapidly expanding medical program of the Veterans' Administration."
"This, then, is the cornerstone of American medicine of today," Dr. Casberg said, "representing the united aims and efforts of civilian physicians as well as those in the Armed Forces."
Giving instances of the Institute's accomplishments in its three basic activities— consultation and diagnostic services, teaching and investigation — Dr. Casberg continued : 18[1]
Some may have considered the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology as a repository of museum specimens and tissues dusty with age; specimens deposited to satisfy the morbid curiosity of the visiting populace. Nothing could be further from the truth, for housed within the walls of this institution are the scientific keys which have and will continue to unlock the secrets of disease. Here is demonstrated the close collaboration between Armed Forces and civilian medicine, a joint effort so smoothly woven that the identity of individual civilian and military threads are lost in the warp and woof of the composite produce * * *.
As I spread the mortar which will unite the cornerstone with this building, it shall be my prayer that all our medical resources, civilian as well as military, similarly shall be cemented in a united fight against disease and for the preservation of our country.
The building which was thus treated as a symbol of collaboration in medicine was so nearly completed by September 1954, when the International Congress of Clinical Pathology and the triennial meeting of the International Society for Geographic Pathology were held in Washington, that the delegates from foreign countries were able to visit it and inspect its features, inside and out. 19[2]
Roof and floor slabs, also of heavily reinforced concrete, furnish internal bracing of the mass, as do transverse concrete walls and the greater depth of the mass due to the double-corridor design of the interior. Necessary openings in the outer walls of the central mass are closed with blast-resistant doors. The heart of the building is in the central block of research laboratories, located on both sides of a 3-foot-wide "mechanical core," extending lengthwise of the building, through which each laboratory is supplied with such essentials as electricity, water, gas, and compressed air. Surrounding this rectangular block of laboratories is a passageway, separating the laboratories from the offices which are ranged against the windowless outer walls. At the ends of the building up
