Comparative Study of Some Dehydration and Clearing Agents

Abstract

An experiment to determine the advantages of dioxan, iso-butyl alcohol, tertiary butyl alcohol, and ethyl alcohol as dehydrants and chloroform, toluol, xylene, benzol, methyl benzoate, methyl salicylate, and acetone as clearers is described. Materials fixed in Bouin's fluid, Zenker formol, and IO% neutral formalin were dehydrated, embedded, sectioned, and stained. Bouin's fluid produces less hardening, shrinkage and distortion than the other fixatives employed. Slow dioxan is the best method of dehydration. All the picric acid need not be removed from tissues to be embedded in paraffin. Tissue blocks not more than 4 mm. thick may be dehydrated and impregnated with paraffin by slow dioxan in 13 hours, fast dioxan in 10 hours, iso-butyl alcohol and tertiary butyl alcohol in 14 hours, and ethyl alcohol-chloroform in 17 hours without incurring any distortion due to rapidity of dehydration and infiltration.