The golden ages of histological technique.

Summa ry The growth of our knowledge of normal and pathological histology has been accelerated by two periods of spectacular technical developments. The first, a t the end of the nineteenth century, produced most of the dye staining methods for sections that are now in use. The second, dating from the 1950's to the present time, has seen the application of electron microscopy, histochemistry and immunohistology to histopathological problems. The combination of the older dye staining methods with the more recent non-dye staining techniques has overcome many technical restraints and offers new dimensions of sensitivity and precision to histopathology.