To the Editor:—
In the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health there appeared an article entitled "The Expanding Scope of Public Health Laboratories," outlining a plan developed in Montgomery County, N. Y., whereby "an approved county laboratory, supported entirely by state and county funds, provides as a free public service for a population of 70,000 people not only the usual diagnostic and sanitary services but also all the medical tests which in most other communities are the task of hospital and private pathological laboratories. This includes all autopsies, surgical pathology, hematology, serology, blood grouping, urinalysis, chemistry of blood and other body fluids, bacteriology, bacterial and agglutination tests, preparation of bacterial vaccines, gastric analysis, basal metabolism, examination of feces and exudates."In the article the plan is commended on the basis (1) that the centralization of all types of medical and public health laboratory work in one organization