SIMPLE PLASTIC MOUNT FOR PERMANENT PRESERVATION OF FUNGI AND SMALL ARTHROPODS

Abstract

WE HAVE employed with success, as a medium for the mounting and clearing of biologic specimens, a recently synthesized resin, or plastic, polyvinyl alcohol, known commercially as "PVA."¹ This substance when combined with lactic acid and phenol provides a permanent hyaline mount and also clears and dehydrates the specimen in a satisfactory manner. The latter features are especially advantageous when it is desired to preserve for teaching purposes or for study collections such biologic forms as the scabies mite, ticks, fleas and lice or their ova. In the preservation of cutaneous fungi, the method is adaptable to material removed from ordinary cultures of fungi, actively growing slide cultures and material in the form of scrapings of skin for the purpose of direct microscopic study. Polyvinyl alcohol was first employed in biologic work by Lubkin and Carsten² as a medium for the elimination of dehydration in the preparation of