The microtomist's vade-mecum : a handbook of the methods of microscopic anatomy / by Arthur Bolles Lee.

  • Lee, Arthur Bolles, 1849-1927.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The microtomist's vade-mecum : a handbook of the methods of microscopic anatomy / by Arthur Bolles Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    gradual by placing the oil of cloves (or other clearing medium) under the alcohol. This is done as follows: A suflBicient quantity of alcohol is placed in a tube (a watch-glass will do, but tubes are generally better), and then with a pipette a sufficient quantity of clove oil is introduced at the bottom of the alcohol. The two fluids mingle but slowly. The objects to be cleared being now quietly put into the supernatant alcohol, float at the surface of separation of the two fluids, the exchange of fluids takes place gradually, and the objects slowly sink down into the lower layer. When they have sunk to the bottom, the alcohol may be drawn off with a pipette, and the objects examined in the clearing medium, or mounted in balsam. (It may be noted here that this method of making the passage from one fluid to another applies to all cases in which objects have to be transferred from a lighter to a denser fluid, for instance, from alcohol, or from water, to glycerine.) 3. The Naples Methods.^—It may be useful here to give an account of the methods actually employed in the Zoological Station of Naples, both in order to bear out the statements I. have made regarding the general method of research, and in order to call attention to one or two points which it is neces- sary to take into consideration in the study of marine organisms. Fixation is always carefully attended to. Pure alcohol is not very suitable as a fixing agent, as it precipitates most of the salts of the sea-water adhering to the surface of marine animals, thus giving rise to a crust that prevents the pene- tration of the alcohol to the interior (thus allowing macera- tion of the internal structures to be set up), and also hinders 1 Mayer, in ' Mitth. Zool. Stat. Neapel,' ii (1881), p. 1, et seq. See also the abstract in ' Journ. Roy. Mic. Soc' (N.S.), ii (1882), pp. 866—881, and that in' Amer. Natural,' xvi (1882), pp. 697—706, in which two last some improvements are mentioned which have been worked out since the pub- lication of Mayer's paper.