What is it about?
Using a permanent dye method (alcian blue) to display, in museum specimens, the distribution of lining cells in the larynx.
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Why is it important?
Preparing specimens for medical museum display is useful for the teaching of medical students. While it is accepted that there are two types of lining cells in the human larynx (squamous epithelium and respiratory epithelium) , without dye techniques, it would be impossible to display the distribution of these lining cells under normal conditions and/or conditions of disease in gross specimens. Because the dye alcian blue reacts chemically with mucin (found in the goblet cells of respiratory epithelium), the dye is permanent which makes stained specimens ideally suited for museum display.
Perspectives
Our team had experimented with different dyes to display the distribution of the lining epithelia in the larynx at autopsy, for a research project and in tutorials. While several dyes we tried were successful in displaying the cell distribution in gross specimens, keeping the dye intact was important in our studies of the larynx and in measuring areas of cellular change under varying conditions. The use of alcian blue, which we knew to have a chemical reaction with mucin, was a eureka moment and we were both amazed and pleased to see that it remained permanent in gross specimens immersed in formaldehyde fixative. This meant we could collect, compare and measure multiple specimens for our research projects.
Irene Gregory Wilkinson
Institute of Biomedical Sciences
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Alcian blue method for the museum display of squamous metaplasia in the larynx, The Journal of Pathology, October 1975, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/path.1711170205.
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