The use of the milling machine for preparing bone sections for microradiography and microautoradiography

Abstract

Undecalcified bone can be embedded in Perspex in an oven which is designed to hasten the polymerization of the Perspex monomer so that short-lived isotopes may be studied. Sections are cut on an engineer''s milling machine to 100u and ground to approximately 50u on ground glass. Sections are then X-rayed and autoradi-ographed so that the degree of calcification and the uptake of different isotopes may be correlated, the autoradiographic film being left on the sections so that the isotope may be determined. Both large-grained X-ray film and fine-grained autoradiographic film are used, depending on the concentration of isotope in the bone. This method can be used for hard adult cortical bone with satisfactory results.