other activities," while a cut of as much as 30 percent in funds and personnel would mean the abolishment of all services other than that of pathology consultation, and serious curtailment of even this remaining central feature of the work of the Institute. 9[1]
Fortunately, no such drastic cuts proved to be necessary, and the demands for consulting service in pathology did not go up to the extent anticipated. This was due, in part at least, to the more selective screening of cases in the histopathological centers, resulting in a reduced flow of pathological materials to the Institute. In 1952, the year before the Cooney Committee made its report, nearly 119,000 new cases were received, including the 29,000 cases from deactivated naval hospitals. With these figures before them, the Committee estimated a workload of 101,000 new cases in 1955, and 106,800 in i960. Actual requirements in those years, as it turned out, were fewer than 63,000 new cases in 1955 and only slightly more than that figure in i960. 10[2]
Atomic Bomb Research Unit
These figures do not include the cases received by the Atomic Bomb Research Unit set up in 1948 under an arrangement with the Atomic Energy Commission by which the Army Institute of Pathology made its facilities available "for the filing and custodial care of pathologic material and related records of interest to the Atomic Energy Commission." 11[3]
The group assigned to this special work, known as the "A-Bomb Unit," was charged with processing "all pathologic material and case histories collected by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan in a fifty-year follow-up study of the victims of the atomic bomb and descendants of irradiated victims." The unit had received, by the end of 1954, specimens and case histories for 26,735 cases originating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in furtherance of its mission of assembling in one place in the United States the information pertaining to the effects of radiation on human beings. Included in this information are the early Japanese reportings of the overall effects of nuclear explosions, and over 200 translations of the Japanese scientific reports dealing with radioactivity, injury, hematology, and pathology. In addition to information from Japan,
- ↑ 9 2d indorsement, General Cooney, dated 27 March 1953, to The Surgeon General of the Army 27 March 1953, subject: Study of the Missions and Functions of the AFIP. On file in historical records of AFIP.
- ↑ 10 Annual Reports, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1952, p. 5; 1955, p. 4; 196o, annex No 3.
- ↑ 11 Letter, Kenneth G. Royal, Secretary of the Army, to Carroll L. Wilson, General Manager, Atomic Energy Commission, 3 February 1948, in response to letter of 23 January 1948. Copy on file in historical records of AFIP.
