CHAPTER III. 



F[XING AND HARDENING. 



28. The Functions of Fixing Agents. — The meaning: of the 

 term "fixing" has been explained above (§ 2). Here 

 is an example showing the necessity of fixation. If a 

 portion of living retina be placed in aqueous humour, serum, 

 or other so-called " indifferent " medium, or in any of the 

 media used for permanent preservation, it will be found that 

 the rods and cones will not preserve the appearance they 

 have during life for more than a very short time ; after a 

 few minutes a series of changes begins to take place, by 

 which the outer segments of both rods and cones become 

 split into discs, and finally disintegrate so as to be altogether 

 unrecognisable, even if not totally destroyed. Further, in 

 an equally short time the nerve-fibres become varicose, and 

 appear to be thickly studded with spindle-shaped knots ; 

 and other post-mortem changes rapidly occur. If, however, 

 a fresh piece of retina be treated with a strong solution of 

 osmic acid, the whole of the rods and cones will be found 

 perfectly preserved after twenty-four houi-s' time, and the 

 nerve-fibres will be found not to be varicose. After this 

 preliminary hardening, portions of the retina may be treated 

 with water (which would be ruinous to the structures of a 

 fresh retina), they may even remain in water for days 

 without harm ; they may be stained, acidified, hardened, 

 imbedded, cut into sections, and mounted in either aqueous 

 or resinous media without suffering. 



This example shows that one of the objects aimed at in 

 fixing is to impart to tissues the degree of hardening neces- 

 sary to enable them to offer such mechanical resistance to 

 post-mortem change and to the processes of after-treatment 

 as not to suffer change of form. Another important 

 function of fixing is to render insoliMe elements of cells and 



