A quick and standardized giemsa stain for wet-fixed cytological material.

The Giemsa stain is one of the most widely used staining techniques in cytology, especially in hematology. A standardized Romanowsky-Giemsa staining procedure using pure cationic azure B (C.I. 52010) and anionic eosin (C.I. 45380) has been described by Wittekind et al (1982). A revised standard Giemsa staining procedure was recently published (Wittekind and Kretschmer 1987). Usually the Romanowsky-Giemsa stain is applied to air dried and methanol fixed cytological material, e.g. blood smears and bone marrow films (ICSH 1984).