On Oct. 31, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the first six buildings of the NIH. During World War II, the NIH focused almost entirely on war-related problems.

. At the outset, a Division of Public Health Methods worked with the Selective Service to analyze why 43 percent of potential inductees were unfit for general military service and 28 percent were unfit for any military service. The most common cause of rejection, it was found, was defective teeth.