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Hello All,
For the past semester I have been working in the lab to fix my college's parasitology slide collection. Most of those that need fixed are mounted in Permount and have crystallized and I don't seem to be having any trouble with popping the coverslips off and remounting them in Canada balsam. Those that I am running into trouble with are mounted in Canada balsam. These either have cracked coverslips or have some form of crackling occurring that is different than the crystallizing of the Permount (see picture).
1. I was wondering if anyone has ran into the cracking issue with using Canada balsam. I have read all over the place that it is one of the better mounting mediums to use because it is suppose to last forever. Most of these slides have to be from before the 70's and some dated even farther back.
On to my real issue though. When I try to pop off the coverslips of those mounted in Canada balsam I make a mess. The balsam is still gooey in the center and sticks to the the shards of coverslip. I have tried adding drops of xylene to dissolve the balsam but this seems to add to the gooeyness of the balsam and I end up tearing the specimen trying to pick out the shards. I have also tried soaking the slides in xylene as I have successfully done with the Permount mounted slides. This also doesn't seem to work very well for me. I have left the slides soak for about 1 to 1.5 hours and when I try to pop the coverslips off the balsam is more gooey on the edges and the shards are just as stuck as when I began the soaking.
2. Has anyone had experience with redoing slides mounted with Canada balsam? Any special techniques? Any special dissolving agents used besides xylene? Any information would be helpful!
NOTE: I haven't tried that many or experimented a lot since i don't want to destroy any more of the specimens. I have considered soaking them longer (like overnight) but I don't really have that sort of access nor time since I have class and work and I figured asking around would be better.
Sorry my post is so long and thank you for any info!
Hi Laura,
I don't have experience in repairing (or even preparing) permanent mounts, so I hope someone more knowledgeable than I can offer suggestions. However, I ran a Google search and came up with a few results that I hope will be somewhat helpful:
http://natsca.info/sites/natsc…..ssue14.pdf (article starting on page 28)
Hi Laura,
The Canada balsam slides you will have to immerse in solvent at least over night, I think benzene may be a better solvent than xylene. If the covers have not fallen off after over night soaking leave them for the next day. Do not try to pick the pieces of coverslip off, these should fall off in the solvent; gently squirting any suborn pieces with solvent using an eye dropper pipet should dislodge them.
I was unable to view your pictures so I do not know if you are dealing with smears, sections, whole mounts or other; smears and sections should be fine whole mounts you will need to treat very gently.
Hope this helps.
I wish you the best of luck (you will probably need it).
Peter.
Thank you guys. I was afraid I would have to let them soak for a longer period of time but I will give it a try!
As to the pictures, they were just to show the crackling of the Canada balsam and smashed coverslips (I think i deleted them on my post). But, the slides are a mixture of segments, whole mounts, some blood smears, and others all ranging from being easily seen to having to use a dissecting scope. So, I'll let you know how goes. lol
Thanks again!
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