I distinctly remember when I was a resident at Johns Hopkins in the late 1960s that the histotechs would smoke while staining and coverslipping without much ventilation. When I suggested to the chief technologist (who later died of smoking related disease at 65, but at least he hadn't set himself afire) that this wasn't such a good idea, he responded by stubbing out a lighted cigarette in a Stender dish full of xylene (apparently you can do this trick with gasoline also, but don't try it at home please).
Buffering formalin was prohibited back then, and they removed the formalin pigment by passing the sections through a concentrated solution (20 or 30%) of picric acid in acetone. I'm glad he didn't try the cigarette trick in THAT Stender dish. Fast-forward nearly half a century, and in the three labs I'm working in I'm still grossing formalin-fixed tissue with minimal ventilation, but at least people aren't allowed to smoke in the lab any more. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Maryville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet