© 2003 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Histology: An Interactive Virtual Microscope
1 Department of ZoologyUniversity of WashingtonSeattle, Washington 98195
Histology: An Interactive Virtual Microscope. RUTH WOOD AND JOEL SCHECHTER. Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, Massachusetts 01375, 2002. CD-ROM. (ISBN 0-87893-888-5 $39.95).
The computer age has changed the process of education, but not always for the better. Computer graphics, especially, have brought to the screen biological images, from ecosystems to molecules, and many of them are effective teaching tools, particularly where schematics can present such things as cell division and secretion. The downside of computer images is their presentation of Nature at second hand.
Histology: An Interactive Virtural Microscope contains digital images of the microscopic structure of the basic tissue types and organs of humans obtained from a collection of about 175 slides (my estimate) in the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. The authors have attempted to provide the "look and feel of a microscope in digital form." Each unit of study (a tissue type or an organ) is introduced with images of mounted specimens on microscope slides. Low magnification views are followed progressively by higher magnifications (1x, 4x, 10x, 20x, 40x and 100x) with increased resolution. Each image is accompanied by a brief legend and optional labels.
Most of the images are from paraffin sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin, but several epoxy and glycomethacryalate embedded and stained tissues are included, and some of the original slides were prepared with special staining techniques to illustrate, for example, connective tissue fibers, basement membranes, components of bone tissue, macrophages and Kupffer cells. A few electron micrographs are used to illustrate cellular organelles, but none are used to illustrate the details of organs.
Although the images are of good quality the application would not be suitable as a stand-alone package for a course in histology. The legends are too brief and often inadequate. Techniques of processing tissue samples are not explained in the legends. There are no diagrams to illustrate the organization of the parenchyma, the stoma, the vascular system, secretory or excretory pathways and nervous components. In contrast to current textbooks of histology there is no attempt to integrate histological information from light and electron microscopy. The application would not be of much value without a good textbook. As a teaching tool it is at best a collection of images for someone who has already learned histology.
Can preprofessional students be taught histology with digital images as a substitute for real slides and microscopes? Even though the digital images are gererally good, important details of the tissues are often lost that might be enhanced with appropriate adjustments of a real microscope (focus and substage diaphragm adjustments). Part of the learning process with real slides involves searching sections to find the examples of structures in several planes of section. If students see only certain preferred planes of section of a cell, a tissue or a part of an organ, chosen by someone else and photographed, they will have difficulty forming mental images or models of that structure. Models are indispensable in enabling students to recognize new images, perhaps in an unusual plane of section, and to classify the tissue and integrate details of structure. A typical histology student will see examples of the same tissues from numerous original slides in the process of studying in an histology laboratory with a real microscope. Thus, when confronted with a different example of a tissue, perhaps with a different stain, he or she can usually make appropriate identifications. If all the students in a class study the same set of canned images, whether printed or digital, they would have a more limited understanding of the structures and probably would be lost with real slides. As with all science, search and discovery are important in the learning process.
This application could be used with a commentary and other resources to introduce laboratory sessions on specific histological topics. It could be used as an electronic atlas in a classroom, but I believe the product would be a poor substitute for real slides and real microscopes.
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