"K N and P J Harris" <ecoli at cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in article
<EI440B.4DE at cix.compulink.co.uk>...
> Lab Safety,
>> I agree that modern pipetting devices with sterile disposable tips have
> made many of these operations very much more safe and have rendered
> mouth pipetting a thing of the past. There was however a nasty
> intermediate period when dreadful gadgets were "stuck" on the end of
> glass pipettes in the interests of "perceived safety" and did just the
> reverse.
Except the fact that if you pippette is going to be used fo a toxic
compound then I would never put my
mouth near it, or anywhere near any "supposed" clean pippettes incase they
are not. In fact I have never mouth pippetted, ever as its a damn stupid
thing to do.
> Our laboratory accident book rapidly filled with incidents of
> glass pipettes breaking and causing nasty wounds when students attempted
> to apply the "aid".
Funny I never seen this done, if you use common sense when putting these
pippeting devices on the glass pippette they don't break. Then again a lot
of
people do leave common sense outside the lab.
>There were no similar quantities of mouth pipetting accidents.
Then again most peol can cover up a quick mouth ful of compund-X unless it
poisens them. While a piece of glas through the hand is a bit harder to
cover up.
>They were unreliable and caused lots of spillage due to leaking.
If used badly yes, then again, if used properly they don't.
> The unknown is risky.
true!
Mike Jones
I.A.H.
U.K.
> Peter Harris,
> Reading University,
> UK.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://iubio.bio.indiana.edu/bionet/mm/microbio/attachments/19971016/3e4f2ff2/attachment.html
