Caron.Johnson (Johnson at zoology.unp.ac.za) wrote:
: Locke's solution is used as a preservative for metacercariae
: according to American literature. What exactly is it? Is there a recipe
: for it? If one buys it already madeup, where would I purchase it? Any
: information regarding Locke's solution would be appreciated.
Locke's Solution is a fairly common (or used to be) saline used to prepare
fresh material for live study (or to simply hold live material for
experimental purposes). I suppose you could call it a preservative in that
it preserves the life in living specimens, but it certainly doesn't have
Locke's solution is (or used to be) a fairly common saline used to
prepare wet mounts of living material or to simply hold living material
for experimental or culturing purposes. I'm not sure what you mean by
"preservative" here, but Locke's Solution (at least the forms I am
familiar with) has no fixation property. It could be used to hold
metacercariae until the relax, at which point another fixative solution
could be used, but simply left in Locke's Solution, dead tissue will decay.
Formula:
LOCKE'S SOLUTION
Sodium Chloride...................9 gm
Potassium Chloride................0.42 gm
Calcium Chloride, anhydrous.......0.24 gm
Sodium Bicarbonate................0.2 gm
Distilled Water................1000 ml
Dissolve the calcium chloride last. The solution does not keep well and
must NOT be boiled. If sterilization is necessary, this should be done
by filtration.
There are several slight variations of Locke's Solution, but none that
are significantly different (that I know of). Some other parasitologist
out there might know of a Locke's Fixative . . .
Good Luck,
Rich
--
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R. E. Clopton "Let me be the Carolus Linnaeus of this
Dept. of Entomology world, bearing no more than specimen
Texas A&M University boxes, botanical canister, hand lens,
septate at tam2000.tamu.edu notebooks, but allowed not years but
centuries of time." - E. O. Wilson
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