And a hearty April Fool's Day to you, too!

A

At 10:44 01/04/02 -0500, sidsnotkins@netscape.net wrote:
>A strange difficulty has arisen in our medical entomology
>lab. We need to cut sections of the larva of the South
>African minefly, Musca subterrae adamantivora. This is the
>vector of a viral infection of workers in our local diamond
>mines. The fly bites the miners and also bats, which may 
>collect the virus from the moths that they eat on their 
>nightly excursions.
>
>The sectioning difficulty is due to the larvae in the mine
>eating dirt that contains diamond dust as well as bat
>guano (which is the organic food source for minefly maggots).
>The largest of the eaten diamonds are no bigger than cell
>nuclei, but they concentrate in the tissue. With paraffin
>embedding and steel knives, everything is shredded. We have
>used the hardest epoxy resin too, and have worn out more
>than 50 diamond knives trying to section these wretched
>little worms.
>
>Please make some suggestions. We have run out of ideas.
>
>Sidney Snotkins  MD, FSACPath
>DeBeer Institute of Industrial Pathology,
>Kimberley, South Africa.
>
>
>
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Alex Knisely, MD
Consultant Histopathologist

alex.knisely@kcl.ac.uk
 
Institute of Liver Studies
King's College Hospital
Denmark Hill
London  SE5 9RS  UK
 
+44 (0)20 - 7346 - 3125 telefax
+44 (0)20 - 7346 - 4627 office