Bob, Why weren't they routinely buffering (or at least neutralizing) the
formalin fixatives at Johns Hopkins as recently as 1970?
It had all been in the scholarly books (by Pearse, Lillie, etc) for >10 years,
and was also in Lee Luna's 1968 Manual of Histologic Staining Methods,
published by
This 84 year old pathologist recalls the histopathology laboratory at Johns
Hopkins Hospital around 1970, when I was a pathology resident there.
Histotechs, often laboratory clerks, sat in front of rows of 400 mL Stender
dishes, smoking cigarettes while they hand-stained slides, often carrying
