ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION In the early days of electrophoresis, there was a sure way to recognize the members associated with this secret society: shake hands. During this ceremony, you would chance a quick glance at the fingers of the chap you were meeting: blue fingers were an element of distinction, would surely point to someone furiously staining his gels with Coomassie Brilliant Blue R-250, in those days the most popular among all stains. Today this element of recognition has been lost, first because silver stains quickly took over, so you would have to look for brownish fingertips, but how could you then distinguish between a true silver staining protocol and cigarette addiction? Second, on the emotional wave of the famous James Bond movie "Goldfinger," gold staining too became a new fashion. Were this not enough, in the aseptic world of today you would not be able to sort out anybody on this basis: scientists look like Martians in modern laboratories-they wear gloves, masks, hats, sterile garments, you name it; no traces are left of their work at the end of the day. But for us pioneers, life was a real adventure: we would plunge our naked hands in basins containing gels to be stained and destained-everything involved direct contact with our fingertips. As the plot below unravels, you will recognize that we have all been intoxicated, as there were plenty of unreacted monomers floating free in these gels, readily adsorbed through our skin: since all these monomers are neurotoxins, it is surprising that the pioneers in the field did not end up in a mental hospital (do not be surprised if this chronicle seems on shaky grounds, I am still on the loose!).
