The Move to Washington

In 1891, the Hygienic Laboratory, as it came to be called, was moved to Washington, D.C., near the U.S. Capitol. For the next decade, Kinyoun remained the sole full-time staff member. He inaugurated a training program in bacteriology for MHS officers and conducted numerous tests of water purity and air pollution for the District of Columbia and the Congress. In 1901, the laboratory was belatedly recognized in law when Congress authorized $35,000 for construction of a new building in which the laboratory could investigate "infectious and contagious diseases and matters pertaining to the public health." Occupied in 1904, this building was located at 25th and E Streets, N. W., in Washington, D.C. The founding legislation for the NIH, therefore, resides in a routine supplemental appropriations act. Many other scientific agencies of the federal government were also created via "money bills." Congress was not convinced that such bureaucracies would prove demonstratively useful, so it chose to preserve the option of divesting the government of them simply by not renewing their funding.