ABSTRACT
The Italian scientist Camillo Golgi was the €rst to use a mixture of potassium dichromate and silver nitrate to stain tissue samples in 1873. Pierre Aubert was allegedly the €rst to use silver nitrate to detect latent prints as far back as 1877 [1]. With regard to processing porous items, the silver nitrate technique was used almost exclusively in the early twentieth century until being supplemented by ninhydrin in 1954. Silver nitrate solutions typically varied between 3% and 10% w/v, although Cuthbertson reported that 1% w/v was the optimum concentration [2]. Although aqueous silver nitrate solutions were commonly used, an alcohol-based formulation had the advantage of drying faster. Olsen reported that
CONTENTS
3.1 Silver Nitrate .........................................................................................................................55 3.2 Physical Developer ..............................................................................................................58
