THE MICROTOMIST'S VADE-MECUM

CHAPTER XVI.
MULTIPLE STAINS-WITH CARMINE AS A NUCLEAR STAIN.               JCCS
172. Of late years considerable attention has been paid to       of
the problem of staining the various elements of a preparation      056
in various colours, in order that by this means the optical      aRef
differentiation of the tissues may be enhanced. Some useful
formule have been settled; but it should be borne in mind        O
that the usefulness of all, or almost all, multiple stains is     omb
very restricted. For the making of didactic preparations I       eeto
believe that most of the formule lately proposed may be very     thisksso
useful; for the purpose of discovering new anatomical facts
I believe that most of them are well-nigh useless. It may be        this
quite true that it may be convenient to be able to show to a      hoRns
class of students a section of the aorta stained with picric      0 cha
acid and picro-carmine, and to be able to explain it to them
concisely by saying, " The red fibres are connective tissue, the
yellow  fibres are elastic tissue, and the brown fibres are
smooth muscle;" but it is also true that a preparation made
so as to give such results (picric acid, twenty-four hours; 
make sections, stain picro-carmine, mount in Farrant's
mediuml) would possess but slight advantages, with very           dO
considerable disadvantages, if it were proposed by means of        1II
it to investigate the structure of connective tissue, or of
yellow elastic tissue, or of smooth muscle, for the first time;    C
or if it were proposed by means of it to make some new            holes
addition to our knowledge of these structures. I know that         th
1 Stirling, in ' Journ. of Anat. and Physiol.,' xv (1881), p. 351.  to ul

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