Theodore Cornbleet

PLASTIC REAGENT BOTTLES FOR ALKALIS

To the Editor:— Anyone who uses strong alkalis, such as sodium hydroxide solution—and this includes most practitioners and medical technicians—wishes at times to avoid somehow the etching properties of these reagents. Because of the etching properties, the inner surface of a glass bottle is dissolved and smudged. The reagent itself becomes a complex suspending a brackish waste that interferes with proper usage. I found it necessary to renew the sodium hydroxide solution in my laboratory every two weeks, and that became a nuisance. These strong alkali reagents are by far the most useful in the everyday hunt for fungi when examining and diagnosing cutaneous lesions and eruptions and excretions from the bronchial tree, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. Numerous other tests and procedures in the medical and chemical laboratory depend on the availability of a supply of strong alkali solution. Plastics today are commonplace and are fashioned into a thousand and