1. Wear safety glasses and
do not wear contact lenses. (Wearing safety
glasses will prevent any possibility of chemicals
splashing into your eyes. It also lessens any eye
irritation from formalin vapors. If any
preservative does get in the eye, rinse the eye
thoroughly with water.) See #3, below.2. Wear appropriate gloves and
lab coat. Wearing of gloves while dissecting or
otherwise working with preserved specimens,
especially those preserved in formalin, is
probably the most common and important of these
precautions. It is strongly recommended you use
gloves when handling preserved specimens.
Formalin goes through latex gloves; the blue
gloves sold at Kiva Book Store provide sufficient
protection from formalin and are recommended for
members of this class. Wearing of lab coats is
probably not necessary in this class. In any
case, if your skin contacts formalin, you should
wash your hands (or other contact areas) well
with soap and water.
3. Work in a
well-ventilated area. Our lab room is well
ventilated. Additionally, specimens we use are
small and therefore do not produce much formalin
vapor. Protective safety glasses used to to
prevent eye irritation from formalin vapors are
probably not necessary.
4. There should be no
eating or drinking (or food or beverages) in lab.
5. After dissection,
preserved specimens should be disposed of in the
preserved specimen hazardous waste container in
lab, and dissecting trays should be rinsed, dried
and returned to their normal storage area.
6. Remove your gloves
(or at least the one on the hand you will use)
BEFORE touching water faucet handles, door knobs,
cabinet and drawer handles, microscopes or any
parts on microscopes, and any other general
surfaces, to prevent contamination of those
surfaces. If you have toxins, etc., on the
outside of your gloves, and turn on, for example,
a water faucet while you have those gloves on,
then that faucet handle will be contaminated with
those toxins, and whoever uses the faucet later,
has a good chance of becoming contaminated with
the toxins your gloves were protecting you from.
You wouldn't want to be the next person to use
that faucet after someone else contaminated it;
no one else does either. Feel free to explain
your objection to others if you see them
practicing bad laboratory habits in this respect,
also.
7. In general, gloves
and lab coats should remain in the lab, i.e.,
remove them before going to the bathroom,
stockroom, another lab, etc.
