Cat stomach

Polarised light micrograph of a section of the stomach wall from a cat. This Victorian slide mount was made by Professor Karl Thiersch in Leipzig in the 1860s. A single fold (ruga) of the stomach wall is visible here revealing the mucosa, submucosa and underlying muscularis mucosa. Blood vessels were injected with dye (carmine; black) before fixing and sectioning the tissue in order to visualise the capillaries in the tissue. The blue background maximises contrast for the injected blood vessels and also shows muscle in contrasting red, purple and yellow. Composite of 8 individual images stitched together. Horizontal width of image is 2 mm.