Amos Brooks observes: >>I have used cryostats clinically as well as in research, and one thing I >>noticed absent from most cryostats is the ability to adjust your block. For >>the life of me I cannot conceive of a reason why a company would have the >>audacity to sell a cryostat that does not allow the block to tilt. If I was >>in the market for a cryostat, I would not even consider one without this >>feature.<<
The cryostat (microtome in a freezer) was introduced into surgical pathology around 1960, when it fairly rapidly replaced the old wet-knife (e.g. Sartorius) microtome. By 1964, when I was a pathology intern, they had come into fairly widespread use, and were in almost universal use before 1980. The early International (Damon/IEC) cryostats indeed had a very large black knob that enabled you to tilt the block. The beginner invariably grabbed that knob and twisted it, putting the block at a weird tilt. Usually before you knew it you were cutting metal, a serious problem back in the days of sharpening microtome blades. When you're doing a surgical frozen section, you have no time for such gyrations. That's probably why this bug/undocumented feature was eliminated. But man, those early Internationals were versatile - the things you could do with them in a research lab were limited only by your imagination and technical expertise. I think with six months lead time you could have one of those things running underwater. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
