[Histonet] Re: bunsen burner at the embedding center

[Kim Tournear]

How many of us smoked and drank coffee at our microtomes? Or while doing autopsies? Those were the days and a lot of us are still around. Lol

Sent from the iPhone of Kim Tournear 🇺🇸 😃

On Sep 20, 2013, at 8:44 AM, Paula Sicurello <patpxs <@t> gmail.com> wrote:

> I worked for the Navy Hospital in San Diego, way back in the day, and we
> did an extraction with fuming HCl (straight, 100% HCl for folks who didn't
> know what fuming meant).  Several people would get nosebleeds every time
> they performed the extraction.  I finally got one of those fans that looks
> like an airplane propellor in a cage and pried open the painted shut
> windows.  I dared anyone to stop me, no one did!  1 was quite gutsy for a
> 22 year old.
> The Petty Officers had me make 10N NaOH and forgot to tell me how hot it
> got.  I almost dropped it when I picked it up.
> 
> Plus I had to swim to work, both ways in a rip tide-battleing sharks and
> jelly fish, while sloshing around in an earthquake!  It is San Diego after
> all.
> 
> Happy Friday!
> 
> Paula
> -- 
> Paula Sicurello, HTL (ASCP)
> Supervisor, Clinical Electron Microscopy Laboratory
> Duke University Health System
> Rm.#251M, Duke South, Green Zone
> Durham, North Carolina 27710
> P: 919.684.2091
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> 
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 11:25 AM, jeff lowen <lowenjeff <@t> hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> yet here we are......how much of what they tell us is hyperbole?
>> 
>>> Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 14:50:24 +0000
>>> From: mucram11 <@t> comcast.net
>>> To: rsrichmond <@t> gmail.com
>>> Subject: Re: [Histonet] Re: bunsen burner at the embedding center
>>> CC: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I actually knew the person you are speaking of and it was his favorite
>> trick.  We should be careful these younger people are using gloves for
>> everything now to protect themselves.  W hen I started in Histology even
>> the pathologists cleaned the paraffin off their hands with xylene and
>> encouraged everyone to do the same .  We used so many things that are now
>> not even allowed to be open on this planet and did know how dangerous or
>> serious the possible issues could be over time.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Pam Marcum
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Bob Richmond" <rsrichmond <@t> gmail.com>
>>> To: "Histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu" <
>> histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
>>> Sent: Friday, September 20, 2013 9:35:55 AM
>>> Subject: [Histonet] Re: bunsen burner at the embedding center
>>> 
>>> I distinctly remember when I was a resident at Johns Hopkins in the late
>>> 1960s that the histotechs would smoke while staining and coverslipping
>>> without much ventilation. When I suggested to the chief technologist (who
>>> later died of smoking related disease at 65, but at least he hadn't set
>>> himself afire) that this wasn't such a good idea, he responded by
>> stubbing
>>> out a lighted cigarette in a Stender dish full of xylene (apparently you
>>> can do this trick with gasoline also, but don't try it at home please).
>>> 
>>> Buffering formalin was prohibited back then, and they removed the
>> formalin
>>> pigment by passing the sections through a concentrated solution (20 or
>> 30%)
>>> of picric acid in acetone. I'm glad he didn't try the cigarette trick in
>>> THAT Stender dish.
>>> 
>>> Fast-forward nearly half a century, and in the three labs I'm working in
>>> I'm still grossing formalin-fixed tissue with minimal ventilation, but at
>>> least people aren't allowed to smoke in the lab any more.
>>> 
>>> Bob Richmond
>>> Samurai Pathologist
>>> Maryville TN
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