[Histonet] Wright's stain

[taylor alan]

Hi Lauren

With reference to your enquiry for the preparation of Wrights stain from Wrights
stain powder

I have found the original method of preparing Wrights stain in one of my
favourite 'historical' pathology text books. Practical Bacteriology, Bloodwork
and Parasitology. Eighth Edition. Edited by Rear Admiral Professor E R Stitt.
USN. 1927. Who was the Director of the Naval Medical School in Washington and
the Phillipines. Many older technicians and medical staff who served time in the
Navy may remember this great text.

Stitt details Wrights original method of preparing this stain, over a paragraph,
cutting tothe chase the resulting dried precipitate is scraped from the filter
paper for storage. The method for preparing a working solution is to weigh out
300mg of stain powder and add to this in a flask 100ml of pure (acetone free)
methyl alcohol to dissolve.(All Romanowsky stains require this same alcohol).

Attached to this paragraph is an additional recommendation by Wright to make a
stock solution by weighing out 100mg of stain powder and dissolving this in 60ml
of methyl alcohol, as above. For use filter off 20ml and add to the filtrate 5ml
of pure methyl alcohol to make a working solution.

I would be very happy to copy the whole paragraph for you, detailing the lengthy
preparation of this stain if you wish. If you have a very aged bottle of this
stain powder there is a very good chance that you will obtain better results
than from a stain prepared in more recent years. We have dry powder stains that
are more than 50 years old that give precise and beautiful results, these are
used sparingly and are very precious to us here in our laboratory.

Hoping you have success with your staining and the methodology detailed above is
helpful to you and your colleagues.

Best Regards

Alan Taylor BSc(Hons), FRMS.

Microtechnical Services

Exeter. UK.


> 
>     On 22 December 2016 at 13:35 Lauren Sweeney via Histonet
> <histonet at lists.utsouthwestern.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
>     Hello all in histoland-
> 
>     Does anyone out there have a recipe for preparing Wright's stain from
> powder? Our pathologist wants us to do Sheehan's modification Giemsa and we
> don't have any commercially prepared Wrights left but we do have an old bottle
> of Wright's powder.
> 
>     Happy Holidays!
> 
>     L
> 
> 
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