Purely Rhetorical questions.

If you were asked to prepare a fixative that contained PICRIC ACID and any
of the following, what would you do?

	chromic acid
	copper salts
	iron salts
	dichromates
	mercuric salts
	sulfuric acid
	osmic acid
	platinic acid
	silver salts
	nitric acid
	ammonium salts
	metal hydroxides (sodium hydroxide?)
	
According to Gray's "Microtomist's Formulary and Guide", such were done by
many histologists prior to publication in the 1950's.

How would you 'REACT' if a bottle of picric acid arrived at your lab with a
metal cap.

Would you prepare Hollande's Fixative for your boss?  Someone did somewhere,
and what was left ultimately exploded.  Would you prepare it?  Then what
would you do?

What IS the hazard of picric acid?  So could you keep it safely in your lab?
How?

That's why we were required to take all those chem classes in the first
place.

Regards,

Frederick C. Monson, PhD   
Center for Advanced Scientific Imaging  
West Chester University  
West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, 19383
610-738-0437
fmonson@wcupa.edu