Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306:reg:73:p1
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 73 (pt 1/2)
Character Range: 124548–127432

73   Clements, 'Activities of the Institute of Anatomy during the War Years', 1945; minute, Clements to Acting Director-General of Health, 'Statement of the Development of the Institute During the last Six Years', 29 March 1946, p. 2, CRS A 2644, item 70; minute, T.M. Owen, Secretary to Council of Canberra University College to Cumpston, 17 February 1944, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3; Wurm, 'The Institute of Anatomy Ethnological Collections', p. 3.

  Section (or Unit) of the Department of Health. They therefore revived the pre-war plan to construct a fourth wing at the back of the existing building, submitting their proposal for consideration to the Public Works Committee. For its part, the Committee failed to see the need for the new wing and rejected the proposal. Work on nutrition studies nonetheless resumed and, in February 1945, the Institute gained an additional responsibility when Cabinet gave its approval for the setting up within the building of a postgraduate School of Nutrition. The first one-year school commenced the following month with an enrolment of twelve postgraduate students.74

  Cumpston's retirement in June 1945 prompted a fresh assessment of the Institute's role and its future. A major review of the institution was carried out in December 1945, the main recommendation of which was that the Institute should be

  divided into four sections: medical, anatomical, physiological and biochemical. Clements proposed at the same time that the name should be changed to 'The Australian Institute of Biological Studies'. In the event, neither proposal was adopted. The Institute remained the Department of Health's Nutrition Research Section and continued to carry out research in this field. It was, however, becoming something of a backwater in the department, as Cumpston's successors as Commonwealth Director-General of Health were not as favourably disposed to the Institute as he had been. This unsympathetic attitude was demonstrated in 1949 after Clements resigned to take up the position of Chief of Nutrition with the World Health Organisation in Geneva. No-one was appointed to assume Directorship of the Institute and, in fact, the position was never again filled. Dr Eben Hipsley took over from Clements as the head of

  the Nutrition Research Section at the Institute.75

  In the early 1950s, a proposal surfaced to accommodate the ANU's Department of Physiology in the Institute building. A Mr N.T. Irwin of Ainslie carried out certain modifications to the building for this purpose, and this was probably the occasion when part of the northern basement was converted into six laboratories. The ethnographic material, which had been stored in this basement for some years, was piled up in one corner. Despite the alterations, the Department of Physiology decided not to move into the building after all. Next year, however,