Vascular Labelling with Monastral Blue B

Vascular labelling is an established technique of experimental pathology whereby leaky vessels can be identified in vivo. A suspension of a suitable colloidal pigment is injected intravenously; the pigment is then trapped in the wall of the leaky vessels. The colloidal preparation of carbon black, which has been used for many years for this purpose, is no longer commercially available. This communication introduces a substitute: Monastral blue B which gives beautiful preparations in whole mounts, is readily visible in paraffin and plastic embedded histologic sections, has a distinctive appearance in electron micrographs, and is nontoxic in the required dosage.