On October 4, 1886, Dr. Kinyoun began his career in the Marine Hospital Service at Staten Island Quarantine Station as an assistant surgeon, taking over direction of the Laboratory of Hygiene in 1887.
When the Surgeon General moved the laboratory from Staten Island to Washington, DC in 1891, he placed 26-year-old Kinyoun in charge of the nation's first federal bacteriology laboratory.
His code name during his MHS career was Abutment.


Kinyoun's later career was spent in private companies and as a professor of bacteriology and pathology at George Washington University before becoming a bacteriologist for the District of Columbia Health Department, a position he held until his death.
In 1909, Dr. Kinyoun served as president of the American Society for Microbiology.
 He is perhaps best known now for the dissemination of the Kinyoun modification of the Ziehl-Neelsen stain for acid-fast bacteria.
On October 4, 1886, Dr. Kinyoun began his career in the Marine Hospital Service at Staten Island Quarantine Station as an assistant surgeon, taking over direction of the Laboratory of Hygiene in 1887. When the Surgeon General moved the laboratory from Staten Island to Washington, DC in 1891, he placed 26-year-old Kinyoun in charge of the nation's first federal bacteriology laboratory. His code name during his MHS career was Abutment.

Kinyoun's later career was spent in private companies and as a professor of bacteriology and pathology at George Washington University before becoming a bacteriologist for the District of Columbia Health Department, a position he held until his death. In 1909, Dr. Kinyoun served as president of the American Society for Microbiology.  He is perhaps best known now for the dissemination of the Kinyoun modification of the Ziehl-Neelsen stain for acid-fast bacteria.
Joseph J. Kinyoun