SECTION TWO 



mucus-secreting glands of the respiratory tract: reddish purple. 

 The nuclei of all cells are stained blue green, while the cytoplasm 

 is yellow to green depending upon the cell. Cartilage: deep 

 purple. Decalcified bone: green. Striated muscle: green and the 

 banding very distinct. Smooth muscle cells: yellow with a 

 greenish tinge. Nerve trunks: yellow. 



Notes: 



(a) The cells of lymph nodes are particularly well stained, 

 and Sharpey's fibres are shown up quite satisfactorily and can 

 usually be traced from the bone through the periosteum. The 

 components of the walls of blood vessels are distinctly delineated. 



(b) The durability of the stain, according to the authors, 

 appears to be of a high degree, since there was no fading of any 

 of the dyes in even the oldest slide which had been on hand for 

 seven months. 



(c) The authors state that both Ehrlich and Harris haematoxylin 

 were used in place of pontacyl blue black and both gave good 

 results. Celestin blue was also substituted for the nuclear stain 

 with quite good results. 



(d) The authors observe that a great deal of effort has been 

 devoted, since staining with synthetic dyes was introduced in the 

 last century, to devising multiple staining techniques which will 

 differentially colour a variety of tissues. The most successful and 

 the best known of the many excellent procedures, the authors 

 state, are those of Mallory or Masson and of Kornhauser. In all 

 of these and in their many variants, either water soluble aniline 

 blue or fast green FCF was used as the stain for collagen. 



The authors had previously* tested a group of dyes not previ- 

 ously used in biology, and one of these (luxol fast yellow TN) 

 in alcoholic solution stained both collagen and cytoplasm a 

 brilliant yellow. An attempt was then made to devise a new 

 trichrome staining procedure by combining this yellow dye with 

 a series of other dyes of different colours, as a resuh of which 

 the technique described above was evolved. 



(e) For further information and photomicrographs the original 

 paper should be consulted. 



Reference: Green J. A. & Wood, Mary L. (1959). 

 * See pages 381-4. 



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