376 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Dec, 



merit when serial sections are to be cut. The tissue can 

 be hardened, stained en masse as by ordinary methods. 

 The infiltration with anise oil can be accomplished with- 

 out injury to the stain ordinarily used, and when cut the 

 section canbe transferred directly to the slide, and 

 mounted in balsam at once. The ease with which tissues 

 infiltrated with anise oil can be frozen and the length of 

 time the tissue remains congealed enables one to continue 

 cutting as long as desirable. A constant pressure appa- 

 ratus, such as a carbonic acid gas cylinder, is. of course 

 preferable for freezing although an ordinary ether spray 

 apparatus can be used. As the congealed anise oil does 

 not injure the edge of the knife there is little or no 

 danger in using the knife employed in cutting paraffin 

 sections. 



A scheme of procedure for putting up sereal sections 

 by this method is as follows: 



Fix the tissue in alcohol. 

 Stain en masse, (ordinary method.) 

 Dehydrate. (Absolute alcohol.) 

 Infiltrate with anise oil. 

 Section on freezing microtome. 

 Mount in balsam. 



The eflBcieucy of this process for delicate histological 

 work is questioned but for many of the purposes for 

 which it is desirable to make sections it affords a very 

 satisfactory method for obviating the paraffin process. 

 Its value lies in the rapidity with which sections can be 

 made from alcoholic specimens where the object to be 

 attained can be accomplished with low power objectives. 

 As suggested by Kuhne and Coats the use of anise oil is 

 largely restricted to certain kinds of pathological work 

 where it is occasionally very important to have a method 

 whereby the results of a somewhat crude microscopic 

 examination cau be obtained in a very short time. 



