[Histonet] Re: Silver Nitrate instead of inking??

[Bryan Llewellyn]

I did work in a lab that used silver nitrate to mark cervical biopsies. 
Most of the pathologists used a 1% solution, often dipping the whole cervix 
into it and causing the whole lot to precipitate from the formalin (grrr). 
One used four or five silver nitrate sticks by dipping in water and just 
rubbing over the specimen.  It does work, a black porecipitate coating the 
edge.  I have never heard of any safety concerns with it as the specimen was 
placed back into formalin immediately after the coating for processing and 
reduction seems to be total.  What I did note was that the silver nitrate 
sometimes penetrated the tissue and you could see s rim of fine granules 
about a cell deep into the surface which could be distracting.

I then got them to switch to India ink, but I found that messy, so I 
switched again to Blueing, which was relatively clean and convenient.  I 
also obtained some tattoo inks so different surfaces could be marked if 
necessary