The evolution of science at the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

NIH had its beginnings in a humble one-room hygienic laboratory on Staten Island 100 years ago. That laboratory was equipped with a modern Zeiss light microscope imported from Germany. The laboratory's primary function was to inspect cargo and persons coming into the United States from abroad for contagious disease. In 1912, Congress changed the name of the organization that ran the laboratory from the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service to the Public Health Service. The change expanded the PHS role to include the diseases of man, pollution of navigable streams, sanitation, and sewage. Before there was an EPA and an NIEHS, pollution issues were handled by a variety of Public Health Service entities. In June 1958 the BayneJones report recommended to Congress the establishment of an agency specifically oriented toward the conduct of biomedical research into the effects of environmental agents on human health. Afterwards, a coalition of social forces moved irrevocably toward the creation of a national center devoted to studying the effects environmental hazards on human health. These forces included increased public awareness of air and water pollution; the disastrous effects of thalidomide in Europe; the destruction of bird and aquatic life by pesticides; the inevitable Congressional desire to do something about the pollution problem; and the eagerness of the academic community to get into and explore a new and exciting, socially desirable field of research. In November 1961, Dr. Paul Gross, professor of chemistry at Duke University, issued a similar call for creation of an institutional focus for environmental health research. The call was then taken up by a Study Group of the Public Health Service, which recommended an increased public role in environmental health research, a central laboratory. By 1962, the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council endorsed the idea, extending the concept even further to include university involvement. This is today a reality in the form of NIEHS's 15 Environmental Health Centers at universities. A short time later, in 1966, the