70 Acres of Science: The National Institute of Health Moves to Bethesda Michele Lyons Curator National Institutes of Health DeWitt Stetten Jr., Museum of Medical Research TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ................................................................................................ 4 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 5 Establishing the NIH Campus at Bethesda, 1930-1941 ....................................... 6 Gallery: Tree Tops .................................................................................... 13 A Closer Look: Biographies ..................................................................... 17 A Closer Look: The Wilson Correspondence .......................................... 21 Construction of the First Six Buildings ............................................................... 28 Gallery: Construction Photographs .......................................................... 31 A Closer Look: Construction Documents ................................................ 41 The President Comes to Bethesda: October 31, 1940, Dedication Ceremony ......... 45 Gallery: The Dedication Ceremony .......................................................... 47 A Closer Look: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Speech, Text and Audio 48 Science and the 70 Acres ..................................................................................... 51 Gallery: Scientists on the 70 Acres .......................................................... 70 A Closer Look: Scientific Instruments of the 1930s ................................ 95 A Closer Look: “The G-Men of Science” ................................................ 120 Remembering the Early Days ............................................................................... 128 A Closer Look: Personal Memories of the Early NIH .............................. 130 About the Photographs .......................................................................................... 136 Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 137 Links ...................................................................................................................... 146 For Teachers ........................................................................................................... 147 Lesson Plan: Public Health Education ....................................................... 148 Lesson Plan: The Fluoride Story ................................................................ 152 Lyons, 70 Acres of Science: The National Institute of Health Moves to Bethesda, 2006 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Victoria Harden, director, Office of NIH History (ONH), for her patience and help in transforming this from a small physical exhibit to an ebook. Also, much appreciation goes to Drs. Sarah Leavitt and Caroline Hannaway, ONH, for their editing skills and suggestions, and to archivist Brooke Fox for her assistance with many boxes of documents. In addition, Dr. Leavitt accomplished the actual uploading onto the web. Roshni Lal and Dr. Leavitt helped develop the education components, ensuring that they meet curriculum standards. Anatoliy Milikhiker at the National Library of Medicine patiently put the photographs from the Historical Images collection into usable digital format, and Jan Lazarus of the same office provided assurance and access. At the National Museum of American History, Judy Chelnick allowed me access to digitize part of their Science Service photograph collection. To make the project a true ebook incorporating print and audio, Alan Hoofring and Ramona Hutko of the NIH’s Medical Arts Program designed the cover while Chip Melsh of the NIH’s Center for Information Technology donated a digital version of President Franklin Roosevelt’s dedication speech. I would also like to thank Drs. David Cantor and Buhm Soon Park for their comments. And surely not least, I would like to thank the NIH’s Office of Public Liaison and Communication and the Office of Intramural Research for supporting the site. Lyons, 70 Acres of Science: The National Institute of Health Moves to Bethesda, 2006 4 INTRODUCTION Some ebooks begin as classics of written text breaking their bonds of binding for the web; other ebooks are created for the web by technologically adept authors. This ebook began as a small physical exhibit of three cases in a hallway of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Clinical Center. The exhibit commemorated the NIH moving to its campus in Bethesda, Maryland, but was limited in space, exposure, and research materials. Most of the documents, articles, photographs, and instruments in this ebook were not available to scholars in the late 1980s. After several years, during which the web developed and the physical exhibit was replaced with other exhibits, Dr. Victoria Harden, director of the Office of NIH History (ONH), decided that the exhibit should be available on the web. In the intervening years, staff had been added to the ONH and research resources made available that changed the scope of the project. Initially the project was conceived as a web exhibit which would include text, photographs, documents, and objects. This conception sank under the sheer weight of information available. So the project was reconceived as an ebook, with more text and fewer images. But the ebook still bears the mark of its origin as a web exhibit, with sections where photographs, instruments, and documents are the main topic. The organization of the ebook and its essays also reflect the ebook’s beginnings as an exhibit. I now walk the NIH campus picturing what it looked like as it was being built in the late 1930s. To my mind’s eye, the scientists working behind the windows of the first six buildings are those luminaries of the past such as Charles Armstrong, Margaret Pittman, William Sebrell, and Claude Hudson to name just the tip of the iceberg. In his speech at the laying of the cornerstone of Building 1 on June 30, 1938, NIH director Lewis R. Thompson said, “I do not know of any other officer of my own times and I doubt if there will be many in the future to have the pleasure, excitement and good luck to be personally instrumental in the development of an institution such as the National Institute of Health now is in 1938.” I believe he was right. Lyons, 70 Acres of Science: The National Institute of Health Moves to Bethesda, 2006 5 CHAPTER 1: ESTABLISHING THE NIH CAMPUS AT BETHESDA, 1930-1941 As one walks the grounds of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, one could mistake the setting for a college campus. Quaint red-brick halls and modern high-rises spring up between shade trees on grassy lawns, and young people stroll on the sidewalks. But the NIH is the biomedical research organization of the federal government. Why is a government agency located in Bethesda, apparently masquerading as a university? The simple answer is that in the late 1930s, the NIH needed more room and a wealthy couple donated some of their land. The more complex answer involves domestic politics, social reform, international relations, economic depression, scientific advances, and personal ambitions. Some Background The story begins with politics and scientific progress leading to an accretion of duties for a one- man laboratory. In 1887, the Public Health Service (PHS) established a small laboratory in a room of the immigration quarantine facilities in New York. There Dr. Joseph Kinyoun was to bring the new discipline of bacteriology to bear on disease research relating to the examination of immigrants. Kinyoun identified the bacterium that caused cholera, providing a diagnostic tool for PHS physicians. In 1891, the “Hygienic Laboratory” moved to Washington, D.C. where Kinyoun’s duties expanded to include training PHS officers in laboratory methods and conducting water and air pollution tests. Ten years later, Congress authorized construction of an entire building for laboratory research into infectious diseases at 25th and E Streets, NW. The next year, 1902, Congress again increased the Hygienic Laboratory’s responsibility, adding the regulation and licensing of commercially produced serums and vaccines–treatments which were becoming increasingly popular. Non-infectious diseases were added to the Laboratory’s mandate in 1912. To accommodate these new responsibilities, a second building was constructed in 1919 at Building at 25th and E Streets, NW 25th and E Streets, NW. Office of NIH History Lyons, 70 Acres of Science: The National Institute of Health Moves to Bethesda, 2006 6 Birth of the National Institute of Health Although it had grown from a one-room laboratory investigating the diseases of immigrants into a complex of laboratories concerned with infectious and non-infectious diseases (basically all diseases) and regulating treatments, the Hygienic Laboratory remained an arm of the PHS funded by appropriation bills. Senator Joseph E. Ransdell (Louisiana) declared “Our lagging in the matter of medical research has not been the result of the inefficient mentality of our scientists, but, on the contrary, the lack of facilities and the discouraging insufficiency of funds to stimulate recruits in science” (“The War for Health,” The Washington Evening Star, May 26, 1931, page A-8). Ransdell Senator Joseph E. introduced a bill to rectify this situation. The bill would rename Ransdell the Hygienic Laboratory, establishing