[Histonet] Re: Goldner's Trichrome Staining

[RSRICHMOND <@t> aol.com]

Tiffany Pitts (University of Washington state) is trying to reconstruct a 
"Goldner trichrome stain", and Gudrun Lang (Analytikerin in Linz, Germany) 
assists. (Some history may help - see below.)- I've reproduced their formulas, 
standardizing English spellings for the convenience of the Googler:

Deplasticize, rehydrate, wash
stain nuclei in Weigert's hematoxylin
wash, 1% HCl, wash
blue in saturated lithium carbonate
wash
stain in "Goldner's Trichrome Stain" reagent (?!?!?)
wash for 1 min, dehydrate and coverslip

It is the "Goldner's Trichrome Stain" reagent that I have run out of and when 
I looked up my former colleague's notes she has "See Julie" instead of a 
recipe. Well, Julie is no longer with us either and I am running out of places to 
look!

nuclei-staining with Weigert hematoxylin
Staining in a mixture of acid fuchsin (or fuchsine) and ponceau de xylidine
(0.2 g ponceau de xylidine and 0.1 g acid fuchsin in 300 mL distilled water 
with 
0.6 ml 100% [glacial] acetic acid)
Rinse in 1% acetic acid
Stain in PMA-Orange G solution (few minutes)
(3-5g phosphomolybdic acid and 2 g Orange G in 100 mL distilled water)
Rinse in 1% acetic acid
Counterstain with Light Green SF (0.1% 100 mL plus 0.2 mL 100% acetic acid)
5 min 1% acetic acid
Dehydrate, clear and mount
*****************
I probably have more information, but I'm away from my books this week. You 
may have difficulty in obtaining some of these dyes, particularly ponceau de 
xylidine (probably the same as ponceau red).

Pierre Masson in Montreal (1920's - 1930's) is supposed to have developed 
many variants of his trichrome stain, and there is no one "Masson stain". 
Goldner's variant, which Gudrun Lang describes, was taken up by Chandler Foot at Co
rnell Medical Center/New York Hospital in the 1930's as a general oversight 
stain in place of H & E, and the stain was sometimes called the Goldner-Foot 
stain. Chandler Foot, one of the founders of American surgical pathology, died in 
1948. Most of his slides were destroyed in a management disaster around 1960, 
but some still survived in teaching collections when I was a resident there in 
1968. - George Papanicolaou, at Cornell around 1940, probably used this stain 
as the basis of the still-used "Pap stain", though certain historical proof of 
this point is probably lacking (Gary Gill, do you know?). 

I would suggest a modern green trichrome stain - they're available 
commercially, though most pathologists have abandoned them because they aren't good for 
liver biopsies. I'd advise separating the green dye and the orange G, but in 
order to reproduce your present stain, you may need to seek out or prepare a 
stain mixture that combines them.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN