Dear Ian,
  Some of my colleagues in Biophysics measure orientation of
  collagen fibres in arteries and aneurysms. They have a microscope
  with a universal stage - can be rotated and tilted (3 axes
  altogether) and all the angles read off from vernier scales.
  Such a stage is probably expensive, but less so than a confocal
  microscope. Their staining method is picro-sirius red, with
  crossed polars. For cardiac muscle, shouldn't almost any
  general-purpose stain be OK?
                                  John.
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On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Dr. Ian Montgomery. wrote:
> I want to examine the orientation of cardiac muscle fibres at the
> periphery of the left ventricle. It's handy when we carry out some
> Physiological experiments. My first thoughts are, routine H & E of serial
> sections for a couple of hundred microns. Or,  thickish cryostat sections,
> stain with propidium iodide then examine using a confocal. Any ideas?
--------------------------------
 John A. Kiernan,
 Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology,
 The University of Western Ontario,
 LONDON,  Canada  N6A 5C1