VPT 321: Veterinary Neuropharmacology (2+1)

Equipment Required for Isolated Tissue Experiments

ORGAN BATH

The tissue bath used to put the animal tissue for studying the drug actions in called student’s organ bath. This was first designed by Rudolph Magnus is 1904 and it essentially consists of following parts.

• Water bath or outer jacket: It is made up of steel, glass or perspex (transparent thermoplastic resin). It holds water and other parts of organ bath.
• Inner organ or tissue bath: It is cylindrical glass with variable capacity. It contains isolated tissue in physiological salt solution.
• Heating rod or electrical heater with thermostatic control: It heats the water in outer jacket to a desired temperature
• Stirrer: A small electrical stirrer keeps the water in outer jacket circulating at uniform temperature
• Glass coil or condenser: A coil made of glass or perspex is connected at one end to the lower end of the organ bath and other to the container having the physiologic salt solution. It usually has double the capacity of inner organ bath to ensure warming of the solution before it enters the organ bath
• Oxygen delivery tube: It is made up of a hollow glass tube. It delivers oxygen to the tissue and also serves as tissue holder. Lower end of the tissue is tied with a thread to its S-shaped curved end. The lower end has a small hole through which air or oxygen is supplied to ensure proper aeration of the tissue

The organ bath having two units of inner tissue bath is called double unit organ bath.