The Giemsa Stain: Its History and Applications

Abstract

Gustav Giemsa was born in Germany in 1867, worked mainly as a chemist, and died in 1948. The staining method, which carries his name, was designed primarily for the demonstration of parasites in malaria, but it was also employed in histology because of the high-quality staining of the chromatin and the nuclear membrane, the metachromasia of some cellular components, and the different qualities of cytoplasmic staining depending on the cell type. The use of methylene azure and its mixture with methylene blue to form an eosinate made stable the stain and its results. Giemsa's stain is regarded as the world's standard diagnostic technique for malaria's plasmodium, and it is also the basic stain for classifying lymphomas in the Kiel classification.