Some new methods of using the aniline dyes for staining bacteria / by E. Hanbury Hankin.

  • Hankin, E. Hanbury (Ernest Hanbury), 1865-1939.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some new methods of using the aniline dyes for staining bacteria / by E. Hanbury Hankin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the background is not sufficiently pronounced they may be treated for a minute or less with eosin dissolved in clove oil, afterwards washed in benzine and clove-oil mixture, lastly in benzine, and then mounted. The whole process does not take much more than a minute, of which about twenty seconds are occupied in adding the eosin solution to the methyl blue. The dehydrating in alcohol should be accomplished as rapidly as possible. Sections stained in this manner show the bacteria stained blue; the nuclei are similarly coloured, but of a lighter shade, the eosin has stained the red blood-corpuscles orange, and the background of the tissue is of a rose-red tint. Ganglion cells are stained purple if the section has not had too much of the colour removed. Besides the blood-corpuscles eosin can stain several other things of a yellow or orange tint, and if these structures have also an affinity for methyl blue the two dyes combine, giving a bright green shade. Haemoglobin crystals and sometimes red blood-corpuscles are thus stained. In sections through the lung of a sheep which had suffered from foot-and-mouth disease this eosin and methyl blue method showed large amorphous caseous deposits of a bright emerald- green colour, while other methods of staining failed to differentiate them. Sections of the lung of another sheep, which contained encysted thread-worms, showed within their rose-red epidermis the protoplasm of the nematodes stained green, and their nuclei of a purple tint. Sections through a congested spleen showed orange-red blood-vessels on a background of blue and green nuclei almost as well as an injected specimen. While oil of cloves is generally used to help the alcohol in taking the excess of colour out of a section, I, on the contrary, use it for keeping the colour in, so far as the bacteria are con- cerned; for bacteria stained as here described would rapidly become invisible if left for long in the more powerful solvent, namely, the alcohol; and sections may often be kept inde- finitely in oil of cloves without the bacteria losing their stain.