Origins of the National Institute of Health
Navigation map Origins Home A Federal Role Begins Independent Marine Hospitals The Civil War and Its Aftermath Flags of 1887 Birth of the Hygienic Laboratory 1900's Bring Change The National Institute of Health The World War II Era The National Institutes of Health

Birth of the Hygienic Laboratory

Joseph J. Kinyoun, founder of the Laboratory of Hygiene.
Joseph J. Kinyoun, founder of the Laboratory of Hygiene.
Diptheria Antitoxin produced by the Hygienic Laboratory, 1895.
Diptheria Antitoxin produced by the Hygienic Laboratory, 1895.

Throughout the 1800's, controversy surrounded the Marine Hospital Service. A bill was introduced in Congress to set up a Bureau of Health in the Department of the Interior. In testifying before Congress against the bill on February 24, 1888, Surgeon General John B. Hamilton said "I desire to invite the attention of the Committee to the Weekly Abstract published a few weeks ago, in which the diagnosis of cholera was made of the cases that occurred in New York, by an officer of my service by the name of Kinyoun, who spent nearly five years in the study of bacteriology. We spent several hundred dollars in forming a laboratory in New York." That was the first time Congress had heard of NIH's predecessor, the Laboratory of Hygiene. The sensational announcement that Dr. Kinyoun had isolated the organism that caused cholera was enough to stop the proposed transfer to the Department of Interior.


The Zeiss microscope of Joseph J. Kinyoun, Laboratory of Hygiene, USMHS.
The Zeiss microscope of Joseph J. Kinyoun, Laboratory of Hygiene, USMHS.
Hygienic Laboratory scientist posed in the 1920's with Dr. Kinyoun's microscope.
Hygienic Laboratory scientist posed in the 1920's with Dr. Kinyoun's microscope.

Last reviewed: 24 June 2009
Last updated: 24 June 2009
First published: 08 May 1998
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanent: Stable Content