[Determination of the quantity of cells in different organs and tissues following alkaline dissociation]

A tissue following fixation for 10-15 days with formalin was treated with 50% KOH aqueous solution during 18 hours, which led to complete dissociation of the tissue into cells. Suspension of cells was placed into the counter of Fuchs-Rosenthal and numbers of nuclei in cells of definite tissues were counted. On preparations of the same suspension in 1000 cells distribution of the latter according to the number of nuclei was determined. Then a number of cells in 1 mg of tissue and in the organ were estimated. The count of muscular cells in the heart of a mouse showed that the relative error of the determination of the number of cells did not exceed 2.0%.