Years ago, when I was in high school (1969), I discovered that my school
had for some reason purchased a Japanese made rotary microtome that no one
ever touched. It even had a conveyor belt for the ribbon. Using a copy of
the old textbook Animal Micrology by Michael F. Guyer (1920's- anyone
remember that one?) that I found at a book sale, and ordering reagents
through the school, myself and anothe nerdy friend I set up a manual
histolab in my high school and my basement. I used dioxane to process and
Cellosolve and xylene to stain (Lord help me) , did H&E's and Trichromes of
guinea pig and rat tissues fixed in Bouin's and Zenker's that I prepared in
the high school lab.  I prepared beautiful slides (I think they still use
them to teach bio)  by processing by hand at home, using metal L's and a
Lipshaw Uni mold  to embed. Made a paraffin oven by hanging a lightbulb
inside an old asbestos incubator that did'nt work anymore. I'd take the
blocks to school for microtomy but I didn't have a water bath so I used to
cut the ribbons at school, put them in my mother's old nylon stockings
boxes, and carry them home on the bus. With Sly and the Family Stone, the
Beatles, and the Young Rascals blasting on the high fi upstairs, I used to
float these ribbons of guinea pig epididymis out on a warm water on slide
smeared with Mayer's albumen and dried them on one of those cheap old
rectangular Boekel aluminum slide warming plates. I soon began to volunteer
 summers, after school, and in my senior year often cutting class, to work
in the  histolab at Nassau County Medical Center with Dick Schroeder, who
taught me technique and investigation, Dick's crew, and Dr. Vince
Palladino, who taught me alot of pathology. I started out making formalin
and left doing frozens. And the rest is history. Those were the
days.............

This Histonet sure is fun. To all- I wish everyone on the net a happy,
healthy, prosperous, and FUN 1999!

Jeff Silverman peptolab@hamptons.com



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From: mark.lewis@shandon.com
To: HistoNet@pathology.swmed.edu; asudra@otogene.com
Subject: RE: Paraffin ribbon storage
Date: Tuesday, December 29, 1998 4:11 PM

Years ago I used to use tie boxes to store my serial sections.  Might look
into a place that sells ties and ask them where they get their boxes.

Mark Lewis
Technical Specialist
Shandon Lipshaw

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From:  asudra@otogene.com [SMTP:MIME :asudra@otogene.com]
Sent:  Tuesday, December 29, 1998 3:39 PM
To:  HistoNet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject:  Paraffin ribbon storage

<<File: ENVELOPE.TXT>>
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I need to find a vendor that sells those cardboard boxes for paraffin
ribbon
storage.


Thanks,


Anish





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