Improve Your Skills

[Anthony]

An easy way to upgrade your ability is with specimen cultures.

A basic setup is petri dishes, culture mediums, and a book on lab procedure. I got my setup from online lab suppliers. Inexpensive.

I got a batch of test disks. These are paper and impregnated with any AB I use, then placed on a petri dish culture. This gives an indication 1. if a pathogen is present 2. what AB will knock it out.

This saves hit or miss treatment with AB and waste or misuse of AB.

This is pretty basic stuff, comparable to high school biology lab. I also bought a batch of cheap fecal test capsules and another manual for flotation exam - this gives me the means to detect GI parasites.

All of this plus a microscope cost less than a used Ruger 10-22. Worth the cost and effort.

[Papadoc]

Re: Improve Your Skills

Could you work up a list of required supplies with links to suppliers? Thanks

[Anthony]

Re: Improve Your Skills

Here's a good basic starter kit-

http://www.amazon.com/Petri-Dishes-A.../dp/B000NNCI68

For most other supplies my favorite is Fischer Scientific.

The biggest expense was a controlled temp cabinet - but without power it's useless.

For med manuals can't beat Amazon - get a basic lab procedure manual, nothing fancy/expensive.

Petri dishes - swabs - agar - any kind of test media - fecal specimen capsules - sterile water - microscope with analytical slides - test tubes and rack.

Agar is cheap but in a pinch you can use blood and some unflavored gelatin.>>on second thought - stick to agar<<

Shop around - I picked up a gob of pyrex labware from a discount supplier for pocket change.

This is really basic lab work but greatly upgrades your capabiilty. My advice is to find a basic lab manual first, then go shopping when you know what you need.

>>Gram staining is also very low tech but requires a little skill - faster than culturing but can give misleading results, however good for identifying common stuff like staph or E.coli<<