Mouth Pipetting: Blogger Reminds Medical Laboratory Technologists of an Era When This Was Leading Source of Clinical Laboratory-acquired Infections
Today, cheap and accurate mechanical pipettes are used by clinical pathology laboratories, although mouth pipetting, a dangerous medical lab practice, is still used in developing nations
Mouth pipetting was the topic of a recent blog published by Body Horrors. The blogger recalled a time when clinical laboratory professionals routinely mouth pipetted specimens.
Mouth pipetting is the practice of using one’s mouth to suck a desired volume of a medical laboratory specimen–blood, urine, cell cultures and other microbial stews–into an open-ended tube, using the reduced air pressure created by sucking to hold the specimen in place while moving it to another vessel. (more…)
