An iron-haematein stain

Extract

For general purposes, especially in haematological work, the Giemsa method, based on the Romanowsky principle, is certainly the most satisfactory stain for Protozoa. For certain structures, however, and in general as a control of the Giemsa stain, it is always necessary to have at one's disposal another method which will give particularly clear pictures of the nuclear elements (see e.g. Minchin, 1909). Of the different methods which are employed for this object the iron-haematoxylin stain is probably the most valuable and the most frequently used. There are, however, several circumstances which are unfavourable to its use as a universal stain. Its principal disadvantage is, that a differentiation is essential: the preparation is first deeply over-stained and the colour is afterwards extracted to the degree which is deemed convenient in each particular case. This extraction is always somewhat irregular, so that the observation, especially of intra-corpuscular parasites, is sometimes made very difficult, and it is not often possible to obtain in a single specimen a satisfactory stain of all the different elements. This difficulty is enhanced by the fact, that the red blood-corpuscles generally retain a deep grey, or almost black, colour. Further, a rather serious drawback is that in sections where greater masses of blood, and particularly blood-clots, are present, it is almost impossible to distinguish either intra- or extra-corpuscular parasites; to make such masses of blood transparent it is necessary to differentiate so much, that the nuclei are also decolourized. A certain inconvenience is also experienced because of the long duration of the staining process, at least 30 hours when the original Heidenhain's method (1896) is adhered to; and although the more recent modifications, especially that of Rosenbusch (1908), have to a great extent overcome this difficulty, they still suffer from the two other disadvantages referred to.