About pinning specimens so they fix flat: Margaret Horne notes the use of dental wax. I've used it to make small "boats" for the rather exacting procedure of pinning muscle biopsy specimens for electron microscopy. Here a 1 to 2 mm bundle of longitudinal fibers has to be gently stretched to its resting length, pinned in the "boat", and promptly fixed in glutaraldehyde.
One technologist noted that she had a young pathologist who was "wet behind the ears" and wanted to pin specimens, and was looking to the older pathologists to bring him in line to The Way We've Always Done It. I try to remain "wet behind the ears", though after nearly 50 years of occasionally pinning specimens I find myself a little dry. We continue to lose skills in the gross room. Today I'm working with a service that has almost no ability to handle calcified tissue - I need to go to the hardware store and buy a hacksaw to replace the worn-out Satterlee saw, which I think was gathered up off a Civil War battlefield. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet