BRIEFER ARTICLES 
A CONVENIENT MICROTOME KNIFE 
(WITH FIVE FIGURES) 
Few people know how to sharpen a microtome knife, and those who 
have acquired the art usually have something else to do. The profes- 
sional knife sharpener will grind out the nicks but will not produce 
the edge needed for paraffin cutting, and it is useless to explain what 
one wants, because he sharpens operating knives for the best surgeons 
in the city, and what is good enough for them is good enough for a 
botanist. 
Several years ago we suggested that if manufacturers would make a 
clamp to hold the blade of the Gillette safety razor, its hard, even edge 
would doubtless be satisfactory for microtome sections, and the blades 
being rather cheap, it would not be necessary to sharpen them when they 
became dull. Numerous attempts to make a holder proved more or less 
unsatisfactory. Some of these discarded holders were very much like 
one described in the current number of Annals of Botany. The objec- 
tion to this knife is that the blade, being held between two flat pieces of 
steel, is not absolutely rigid. Further, such a holder clamped directly 
into the microtome does not place the edge of the blade in the most 
favorable position for cutting. ; 
After our own efforts had failed to secure the results which we 
believed the cutting edge of the safety razor should produce, we Pre 
vailed upon a well-known optical company to make a sample holder, 
and this was fairly satisfactory, but the price ($13) seemed practically 
prohibitive. 
: We then explained to a skilled mechanic? just what we wanted, and he 
made a holder which is quite satisfactory and costs only $3. It is made 
of brass and can be used in either rotary or sliding microtomes; 6 
essential features can be seen in figs. 1-5. About 13 or 14 cm. is a Cone 
venient length for the holder. The sectional views show that the two 
pieces are not straight, but are slightly curved, a feature which insures 
— Bentiey, B. H., An arrangement for using the blades of safety razors in 
microtome. Annals of Botany 25:273-275. 1911. 
* A. W. Srrickter, 1311 E. 57th Street, Chicago, Ill. 
Botanical Gazette, vol. 51] [298 
