Taming Dreaded Diseases in the 1800s
Joseph Kinyoun, the Hygienic Laboratory, and the Origins of the NIH
BY EVA ÅHRÉN, OFFICE OF NIH HISTORY
In Building One on the NIH campus, next to the main floor elevators, hangs a portrait of a middle-aged man with rolled-up sleeves, one hand on his hip, the other on a shiny brass microscope. A plaque identifies the subject as “Joseph J. Kinyoun, Director of the Hygienic Laboratory, 1887-1899.” The National Institutes of Health traces its origins back to the Hygienic Laboratory (HL), the first federal laboratory of medical bacteriology.
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