[Histonet] Re: As Thanksgiving Approaches

[Robert Richmond]

I'd think that vésicule biliaire vinaigrette would be inclined to get
the moldies. Of several not very satisfactory solutions, Tony
Henwood's suggestion of mineral oil (paraffin oil) might be the
safest, though messy if it gets spilled.

What religion requires decades-long preservation of gallbladders?
Highly observant Jews sometimes request return of tissues, but their
requirement is that the tissue be buried in a Jewish cemetery - as
soon as possible, not waiting for the rest of the patient to arrive.
Do Muslims have any issues here? - I'm not aware of any Christian
tradition that has any rules about this problem.

In my personal experience, the most common problem of this sort has
been the patient who wants an amputated leg buried with him. Whenever
I've dealt with this problem, a funeral director has bailed me out. As
far as I know, there was no religious issue with the legs, just
personal (or cultural) preference.

The most bizarre situation of this sort happened to me about ten years
ago. A rural midwife had asked an OB-GYN to remove a retained placenta
after a difficult delivery. The OB-GYN put the placenta in formalin
and sent it to a pathology service some distance away. The midwife
called the lab, and was furious to learn that the placenta had been
put in formalin. It seems that (I hope you're not reading your e-mail
with lunch) the midwife had her patients eat their babies' placentas.

I think the JCAHO or somebody banned returning gallstones to patients,
a practice that used to be quite a nuisance for pathologists.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN