Re: AZURE II

From:

RichardWHorobin@aol.com

Bob Richmond comments - -

Azure I and Azure II are very old designations (before World War I) for
trade-secret mixtures of the closely related thiazine dyes methylene blue,
toluidine blue, and azure A, B, and C. See R.D. Lillie's Conn's Biological
Stains, 9th (and lamentedly last) edition, 1977.

Lament not Bob!
John Kiernan and me are even now finalizing the text of the last chapters for the NEXT, totally rewrit edition of Conn's Biological Stains due out sometime next year. This is edited by myself and John Kiernan on behalf of the Biological Stain Commission.

So I couldnt resist looking up our draft chapter of edition 10 on 'thiazines' to see what (if anything!) we've said about Azures I and II. We did mention them, as follows:

"- - polychrome methylene blue, made for incorporation into Romanowsky stains such as Giemsa's, Lieshman's, Wright's and that ilk, are routinely manufactured by oxidation of methylene blue - - The traditional terms azure I and azure II, still found in catalogues and the research literature, describe polychrome methylene blue and polychrome methylene blue with added methylene blue respectively"

So, back to the original questioner, Azures in this sense will not contain eosin, which has to added to make the functional Romanowsky stain.

Bye now - Richard Horobin

Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow
T direct 01796-474 480 --- E RichardWHorobin@aol.com
"What should we expect? Everything."

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