Herpetological collection

Roberta Salmaso <rsalmaso [at] comune__verona__it> writes

>In our museum there is an old Herpetological collection (1850-1900)
>preserved in formalin. For health safety we would like to substitute
>formalin with 70% alcohol. Anyone knows if this change could damage
>the specimens?

I looked into these questions a few years ago for a natural history
curator colleague.

On the formalin question:

    Jonathan Bayliss
    "Removing Wet Specimens from Long Term Storage in Formalin"
    Conserve O Gram 11/1, 1993.
    Published by the National Park Service

    **** Moderator's comments: See:
<URL:http://www.cr.nps.gov/csd/publications/conserveogram/11-01.pdf>

Of course, given that formaldehyde (formalin = 10% formaldehyde in
water) is a known carcinogen, safety precautions and disposal are
extremely important.

There is also a great introduction by John Simmons to fluid
collections: "Storage in Fluid Preservatives" in the book Storage of
Natural History Collections, Volume 1, published by the Society for
the Preservation of Natural History Collections. (Sorry, I don't
have the full reference here).

He recommends using 70% ethanol over isopropanol, which may
dehydrate specimens severely, even at 50%. It is also more toxic
than ethanol.

On the rehydrating question, I think that this is the latest:

    Vogt, K.D. 1991.
    "Reconstituting Dehydrated Museum Specimens"
    Curator 34(2):125:131

Although I talked to several people working in natural history
collections who cautioned that it may be best to leave the specimens
in dehydrated condition. Apparently tissues undergo a great deal of
damage when they dehydrate, which will not be reversed when they are
reconstituted.

Hope this is of some help,

Kathy Hall
Institute of Nautical Archaeology
Bodrum, Turkey.

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:61
                Distributed: Wednesday, January 27, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-61-003
                                  ***