Cellular Stains

The Romanowsky Stain
These stains are used to highlight structures within a patient's cells, are made up of acidic (having an affinity for basic substances within a cell, eg. haemoglobin) and basic (having an affinity for acidic substances within the cell, eg. DNA) dyes. The resultant staining is referred to as the "Romanowsky Effect".

Preparation of The Blood Film
The blood film is air dried and then fixed (to stop metabolic processes, fix the structure of the cell membrane and stop cells from washing off the glass slide).

Types of Romanowsky Stains

  May Grunwald
  A good cytoplasmic stain.

  Giemsa
  Good nuclear stain, but also an adequate cytoplasmic stain.

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