[Nhcoll-l] Fluid preservation: what is Triple Fix?

[Simon Moore]

Thanks John and yes, FAA would be another and usually associated with plants or as a cytological fixative like Carnoy’s fluid.   The compositional fixatives are endless and there was a phase of many anatomists, histologists and other preparators inventing their own formulae from the late 19th into the 1920s, perhaps to be helpful but (also likely) to get ’their names in lights’! 
FAA stinks if you get near it (yuk!) but is a clear and uncoloured fluid. 

What sort of specimen is it - zoo, bot, histology, cytology…?

With all good wishes, Simon

Simon Moore MIScT, RSci, FLS, ACR
Conservator of Natural Sciences and Cutlery Historian,

www.natural-history-conservation.com




> On 20 Jan 2023, at 16:46, John E Simmons <simmons.johne at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Simon Moore can correct me if I am wrong, but my guess is that the “triple fix” refers to what was commonly known as FAA, an attempt to make a “universal fixative” or a “universal killing and fixing agent.”
>  
> There were many variations of the formula promoted by botanists and zoologists, each involving differing amounts of formaldehyde, acetic acid, and alcohol. The idea was that you could use this solution to fix and preserve tissues at the same time in the field, and some authors even recommended using it as a long-term fixative. However, Dempster (1960:69) cautioned that chemically, it does not work, because “the fixing reagents in a mixture do not penetrate the tissue en masse, but… each reagent penetrates tissue in a characteristic sequence.” FAA was mentioned in at least one edition of the Kew The Herbarium Handbook with the warning that it “makes specimens brittle” (Forman and Bridson 1989:72)
>  
> The exact formulas varied from one author to another. A fairly typical mixture was 6.5 cc formaldehyde, 2.5 cc glacial acetic acid, and 100 cc of 50% alcohol; another version of FAA was 90 parts ethanol, 5 parts glacial acetic acid, and 5 parts formalin. In the UK, it was typically formaldehyde, industrial methylated spirit (which is a form of denatured ethanol), and acetic acid.
>  
> I have listed as many variations of the formula as I could find in Table 1 of Fluid Preservation: A Comprehensive Reference (2014), along with a reference to their publication.
>  
> [Dempster, W. T. 1960. Rates of penetration of fixing fluids. American Journal of Anatomy, 107:59–72]
> 
> --John
> 
> John E. Simmons
> Writer and Museum Consultant
> Museologica
> and
> Associate Curator of Collections
> Earth and Mineral Science Museum & Art Gallery
> Penn State University
> and
> Investigador Asociado, Departamento de Ornitologia
> Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 11:13 AM Claire Smith <c.e.smith at pgr.reading.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> One of our students has come across a fluid specimen in our teaching collection that is preserved in “Triple Fix” – does anybody know what that is?
> 
>  
> 
> Many thanks for your help,
> 
> Claire  
> 
>  
> 
> *******
> 
> Claire Smith (she/her)
> 
> Graduate Teaching Assistant & PhD Candidate, Cole Museum of Zoology 
> c.e.smith at pgr.reading.ac.uk 
> claire.smith at reading.ac.uk 
> www.twitter.com/wetconservatrix
> 
>  
> 
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