I still think the biggest contributor to our ergonomic problems is the
computer keyboard with help from some other things!  

Have cut for years (millenia??) with rotary microtomes, coverslipped
thousands of slides, knitted, played the piano, typed on the old and newer
electric typewriters BUT when the computer keyboard came out the twinges
and shooting pains were more apparent, old age excluded here!  

Never noticed typists, 20 years ago, with CTS.  Now it is rampant and they
rarely use a regular (harder action of keys, no wrist resting!) typewriter,
hmmmmm should that tell us something???? or tell the computer keyboard
designers, duh!  

Automation (microtomes, cryostats) is wonderful, and it is obvious the
people using these m'tomes love them, hooray for modernization in our
profession, keep it coming!
 One thing for certain, it makes no difference what kind of microtome one
LEARNS on or uses. The THEORY behind cutting stays the same, and the'tomes
get progressively better and more efficient, and take little time to learn
how to operate. 

Off this dang computer! off to automated cryostat------

  

    

  
Gayle Callis
Veterinary Molecular Biology
Montana State University
Bozeman MT 59717-3610
406 994-4705
406 994-4303