On Sun, 3 Jan 1999, Neal E. Beeman wrote:

> Does anyone know where I could purchase a stain called brazilin also called
> natural red 24?

  This very useful dye disappeared from the Sigma/Aldrich/Fluka
  catalogs some years ago. It is in the 1995 ICN catalog, but
  pretty expensive: $42 for a gram. I don't have a more recent
  ICN catalog on the shelf. ICN's phone number is 800-854-0530;
  fax 800-334-6999 (or was, in 1995).

  Another possibility is to extract your own from brazilwood,
  which is sold for back-to-nature textile dyeing enthusiasts.
  This would be like making your own haematoxylin from logwood:
  unlikely to be done other than for amusement.

  People who do manage to get some brazilin nearly always ask
  what to do next. The answer is that you simply substitute it
  for haematoxylin in any haemalum recipe: Ehrlich's, Mayer's
  etc. My own experiences have been with Mayer's brazalum. It
  keeps for 7 or 8 years; a good bit longer than you can
  expect of Mayer's haemalum. Probably an air-oxidized
  Ehrlich-type brazalum would last even longer.

 John A. Kiernan,
 Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology,
 The University of Western Ontario,
 LONDON,  Canada  N6A 5C1