A surgical handbook : for the use of students, practitioners, house-surgeons, and dressers / by Francis M. Caird and Charles W. Cathcart.

Caird, Francis Mitchell, 1853-1926

Date:: 1889

Credit: A surgical handbook : for the use of students, practitioners, house-surgeons, and dressers / by Francis M. Caird and Charles W. Cathcart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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$APPENDIX. A. The Microscopical Examination of Secretions and Discharges. The microscopical examination of secrelions and discharges has now become almost as much a matter of routine as the examination of the urine. The presence of organisms in wounds, blood, or pathological products, is of great significance and interest. An Abba's condenser and high magnifying powers are to be employed. The fluid should be obtained fresh, and spread on vet^ fine cover-glasses. It is obvious that cover-glasses and instruments must be absolutely pure. The glasses, if dirty, should be soaked in nitric acid, and may always be kept for use in strong acetic acid, from which they are removed and dried with a clean cloth before use. A drop of the discharge to be examined is lifted on the point of a needle—which has just been purified by heating to redness—and spread in a fine film over the surface of the cover-glass. .•\ couple of films may be obtained by placing a drop between two glasses and pulling them asunder. The film is then carefully and thoroughly dried by holding it for a little well above the lamp. Finally, just before staining, the cover-glass should be drawn thrice through the flame of a Bunsen burner at the rate of a long pendulum swing ; this fixes the film, and makes it stain more readily. Staining. — Place on the film for 60 seconds a drop of a 2 per cent, watery solution of methyl aniline violet, with 20 per cent, absolute alcohol added ; wash off with a gentle stream of distilled water, and examine. In the case of blood, the stain should be a half-saturated alcoholic solution. Gram's Method.—Prepare a watery solution of aniline oil by putting a drop or two of the oil into a, test-tube, adding about half an ounce of water, and after shaking, filter. .Add to this 11 per cent, of a saturated alcoholic solution of gentian or methyl violet. Let the cover-glasses stain in this for 15 to 30 minutes. [Sections require twice as long.] Then at once place them in Gram's fluid— Iodine, i part; iodide of potassium, 2 parts ; water, 300 parts ; or as a substitute for this, add tincture or liniment of iodine to water, till of a dark-sherry colour. They should next be transferred to absolute alcohol, and then placed in a weak watery solution of Bismarck brown or eosine for the contrast stain, after which they should be washed in distilled water, laid to drain on blotting-paper, end on, and, before mounting, held about i y. foot above the lamp to dry. A drop of Canada balsam dissolved in xylol serves for mounting. The bacilli of tubercle may be stained after the manner of Gibbes, with whose reagents full instructions are supplied. The following method, a modification of Neelsen's, has also been recommended :—$