Rabbit tongue

Polarised light micrograph of a section of rabbit tongue. This sample is from a vintage prepared slide from the period 1870 - 1905. Blood vessels were injected with dye (carmine; red) before fixing and sectioning the tissue in order to visualise the capillaries in the tissue. This was a newly developed technique at that time. The whole structure of a typical herbivore tongue, from papillae (raised protrusions or bumps on the tongue) to the underlying muscle can be seen here. The image is truncated because the original mounter could not fit the entire section under the coverslip. Composite of 72 individual images. Horizontal width of image is 15 mm.